


Flashover

by adiduck (book_people)



Series: Heterodyne!Sorin FanFanFic [1]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: (no I'm not), (still not sorry), Actually no canon characters until the epilogue???, Body Horror, Child Abuse, Fanfanfiction, Fanfic AU, Gen, Gore, I'm Sorry, Jaegers, M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-11 15:12:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3330521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight years before canon, Sorin Petrescu, tentative Lord Heterodyne, enters a town called Blecherville to learn from its Spark, the venerable Professor Blecher. He <i>does</i> learn a lot, though it's not quite the subject matter he was expecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Askerian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Nuée Ardente](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2067129) by [Asuka Kureru (Askerian)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askerian/pseuds/Asuka%20Kureru). 



> Okay, a little background. This fic came into being as a direct result of Asuka Kureru, aka Askerian, doing a meme on her tumblr called the Turn Left meme. Basically, people gave her a single change in one of her stories, and she extrapolated from there. One of the people asked for a scenario from _Nuee Ardente_ (which you really do have to read to understand this one, folks), in which one of her OCs, Velimir, discovered that the other OC, Sorin, was in fact a Heterodyne (not THE Heterodyne, mind. Agatha still exists in the 'verse and ends up being the Heterodyne of this generation etc.).
> 
> You can find her responses to that ask, and a similar ask in which Sorin was a Spark, here:  
> http://asukaskerian.tumblr.com/post/106905113175/nue-ardente-sorin-is-a-spark-or-becomes-a-spark  
> http://asukaskerian.tumblr.com/post/106910932170/sorin-is-actually-the-long-lost-hetrodyne
> 
> This fic was written with Asuka's permission (and, on a few occasions, her insistence), and I thank her very much for letting me play in her sandbox. Do go and read her series with these guys before you read this, it will all make _so much more sense_.

The sign, ornately shaped and flowing in elegant arcs over the huge, shining metal gates, was enormous. Standing what must have been two meters high in steel and embossed gold, all buffed to a high finish, it stood as a veritable beacon from the road to the bustling, brightly colored town Sorin could make out through the open gates. It had even been thoughtfully angled so it was merely impossible to miss, rather than blinding to travelers coming up the road. _Blecherville_ , it proclaimed to all and sundry.

Sorin pulled the brake on his lava transport and stared. Behind the cabin, the individual round cars bounced into each other as the whole caterpillar came to a halt, likely causing quite a stir inside. Sorin ignored that – if he got caught up in trying to fix the brake problem again they’d end up stuck outside the gates for the night, and considering they were maybe 15 minutes away that would be frankly embarrassing. “Huh,” he said instead, frowning up at the sign.

Beside Sorin, Zbignev shifted, tilting his hat up from where he’d had it pushed over his eyes so he could raise an eyebrow in question. “Sumtin wrong?” he queried, and Sorin could almost feel the loose slump he’d been in before give way to a tense alertness. He cringed.

“No, sorry,” he said, gripping his steering wheel and hoping he didn’t look _too_ embarrassed. It was just… “I just…” he gestured vaguely to the sign. “Blecherville?”

Now Zbignev looked a bit confused, which was actually no better. “Vell, iz Professor Blecher’s town, jah?” He sat up, rolling his shoulders and pushing his hat back into place. “Hy mean… iz not de most original name, hy guess, bot—“

“It seems… kind of narcissistic, is all,” Sorin muttered, starting the caterpillar again. “I mean… it’s his _name_ , and it’s so big we can see it from here!”

“Ho, vell,” Zbignev said, obviously relaxing, “dot iz not so sorprizing. Professor Beetle did de same, yaz? Und novun tinks _he_ is narci—narschis—dot heez head iz too big.”

Sorin wasn’t so sure about that, but before he could really respond the partition separating the cabin from the rest of the first car opened and Veli stuck his head out, eyes going immediately to Sorin and then to the road in front of them. Sorin felt his breath ruffle the back of his hair, and felt his face heat again, turned his eyes very firmly back to the road. “Vat’s up?” Veli asked behind him, casual tone belied by the fact that he’d come all the way up through three cars to ask the question.

“Yeah, sorry,” Sorin muttered, “just…” Ugh, now he’d worried everyone. Fantastic. “It’s nothing,” he said again, firmly.

“Master Sorin doesn’t like de Professor’s aesthetic,” Zbignev supplied, and Sorin could hear the teasing grin even without turning to look.

“Hm? Oh,” Veli said, probably catching a look at the sign, and snickered. “Jah, hokay, dat vun is maybe compensatink for someting.”

“Yes, thank you,” Sorin said briskly. “That’s what I thought.” Veli huffed out a laugh, breath brushing Sorin’s neck. Sorin absolutely did not shiver, and Zbignev’s raised eyebrow had to be about something else. Yes. Sorin was probably the color of _brick_ , ugh.

“Vhich vun is this, den,” Veli asked. Sorin turned his head to look at him, saw Veli had propped himself up on the divider, settled in like he planned to stay up here a while – well, it probably _would_ be a pain to go back through all three cars while they were moving. Probably that was it.

“Hm?” he asked, making himself look back at the road.

“Hy mean, he’s de clank teacher or de medical teacher or…?”

“Oh, clanks,” Sorin said. “The Baron was saying he’s working on clanks that can go into areas still too dangerous for humans after the Other attacks and… clear them out, I guess. Fix them enough for humans to start using them again.” The letter had said the Baron thought Blecher would be able to give Sorin a grounding in electrical interfaces beyond what Sorin had needed to make a good locomotive, or an oven that heated without bursting into flames on its operator. Which – well, could be fun. More fun than the month he’d just spent in Frequen City, at least, with Herr Langer and his disapproving looks and his laboratories full of radio static. Sorin was looking forward to it more than the _biology_ Spark they were supposed to be visiting next month, anyway.

At least he knew _something_ to start with, with this. And he might even get to really build something! Maybe. Possibly. By the time he had to leave, at least.

Fifteen minutes later they were at the gate. Sorin looked up as the drove up to they gatehouse, but the sign was now so big that the eye couldn't read the whole of it at once anymore. Instead, a smaller sign planted by the door to the gatehouse indicated, once again, "Blecherville," in case someone might have missed it the first time around. Inside, a bored guard was sitting at a desk, absently fiddling with a pen. He looked up as Sorin brought his transport to a stop, eyes flitting from Sorin to his companions and back, eyebrows disappearing under his hairline.

“Ah,” he started, eyes flicking between Zbignev and Sorin, occasionally taking little darting looks at Veli behind Sorin, as though he wasn’t sure who he should be addressing – or just didn’t want to take his eyes off the large, toothy constructs.

Zbignev cheerfully tipped his hat. The guard gulped.

Sorin sighed and took pity. “I’m Sorin Petrescu,” he said, handing his travel papers out the door to the guard, who took them on automatic. “I’m here to meet with the Professor… he should be expecting me?”

The guard tore his eyes away from Zbignev with what looked like visible effort and glanced down. Then he blinked, and turned to look at his own papers, shuffling through them before he found an official looking document. His face cleared. “Oh, Herr Petrescu! Yes, I see your clearance here.” The guard took out a rubber stamp and ink, pounding the paper in front of him and Sorin’s papers in quick succession. Bam, bam. He handed Sorin’s papers back with a smile. “I’m to tell you that you and your attendants are to go to the Carriage entrance on the West side of the Castle. You’ll be staying there with the Professor while you’re in town. I’ll send word ahead of you that you and your two companions—“

“Eleven,” Sorin interrupted, sighing inwardly. The guard paused and blinked.

“…Um. Pardon?”

“Eleven companions,” Sorin clarified, handing back his papers so the guard could look at them again.

“…Oh!” The guard said, looking at Sorin’s papers again. He handed them back, suddenly looking much more nervous. Sorin sighed. “Apologies, my papers simply say your name and that you will have… attendants.” His eyes darted to the two jaegers again. “But that’s not a problem, I’ll send word to expect you and _eleven_ attendants shortly. Um. Welcome to Blecherville.”

“Thank you,” Sorin said, trying for friendly, and quickly started the transport and drove off before the guard could say anything else.

He waited until they were out of earshot before slumping as much as he could while still driving.

“Is that going to happen _every_ time?” he asked, mournfully.

“Probably,” Veli said, sounding not at all sympathetic.

“Great,” Sorin muttered. “Next time I’m lying about how many of you there are.”

“Dot could be fun,” Zbignev said cheerfully. “Ve chust tell dem ve iz… six, mebbe. Hy bet ve ken make dem tink vun ov os ken change shape or someting, so ves ken still haff shifts. Ken hy be Stani?”

“You look nothing like Stani,” Sorin said, smiling in spite of himself.

“Ve can pair up Stani und Andrej,” Veli offered, grinning wide enough Sorin could see the glow even without turning his head. “Hy think ve can convince him to vear her uniform for a bit.”

“ _Andrej_ looks nothing like Stani, either,” Sorin pointed out, patiently.

“Iz more a build thing,” Veli explained, missing serious by about a mile.

“Und he’d look better den me in a vig,” Zbignev said, like he was admitting to a great failing.

Sorin gave in and laughed.

* * *

Sorin had stopped paying attention to Veli and Zbignev’s grand plan to fool the next town into thinking he wasn’t traveling with a squad of jaegers three blocks ago, and Veli was not ashamed to admit he was pouting about it. At least half-seriously, even.

He shot Zbignev a look, twisted his mouth into a grimace. Zbignev shrugged back and settled down in his chair, pulled his hat brim low to keep the sun out of his eyes as he scanned the people on and around the road, lids half-mast. Hrmgh.

Well, fine. He settled in himself, eyed Sorin’s neck. He could probably make him twitch again if he huffed in his ear, Sorin kept doing that when he first came up and it was – Veli mentally shook himself. No, that was a bad idea. Because Sorin was driving. And having been there for the initial attempts through the corridors of Castle Wulfenbach, Veli actually would prefer Sorin keep both hands on the wheel and pay attention to the speed and when he should brake.

And also Veli should be doing his _job_.

Alright, then. Time to pay attention to what was going on outside the lava caterpillar.

…No, the silence was suffocating. Sorin was a good enough driver he could be a _little_ distracted now, right? He reached up and poked Sorin on the back of his bare neck, careful to tip his claw back so he didn’t accidentally scratch him. Sorin twitched, pulled his head away.

“Hey—“

“Hyu is quiet all of a sudden,” Veli pointed out.

“Don’t poke, me, I’m trying not to hit anyone,” Sorin grumbled. Veli tilted his head, and took in Sorin’s tense, narrowed eyes, the set of his jaw – okay, he wasn’t doing the nervous sulky thing again, that was fine.

It wasn’t just concern he that he was going to hit someone either, though. Sorin was scanning the area, too, something that looked a bit like worry seeping in at the corners of his expression. Hrm. “Ho, vell, dey iz gettink out of de vay,” he said, cheerfully, doing another quick scan to make sure that was indeed the case, and also none of the townspeople had sprouted ill will towards the man in the lava caterpillar in the last thirty seconds. They hadn’t, so he went back to poking Sorin.

Not literally, though, okay, Sorin _was_ driving.

“Yes, they’re getting out of the way because a large metal transport is very nearly hitting them,” Sorin was griping, doing his level best to slow down even more.

“Vell,” Veli said philosophically, thickening his accent enough that Sorin’s eyes flicked to him and then rolled, “iffen dey hed gotten out of de vay vhen dey see hyu comink inschted of _chust before_ —“

Sorin was trying not to smile now, lips pinched down at the corners so they wouldn’t give him away – Success! Well, not really, someone needed to sit their new Heterodyne down and try to teach him a poker face, this was a travesty, but for now Veli was willing to take the win of cheering Sorin up. He grinned guilelessly back, teeth out. Zbignev snorted.

Then he shot up, eyes widening in alarm. Veli snapped his head around, saw the woman standing in the middle of the road with the packages just as Zbignev was saying “ _Master!_ ”—Veli lunged for the brake and jammed it down a second before Sorin’s hand landed on top of his. Sorin switched to the throttle and yanked it all the way out. The engine sputtered and died as the brakes squealed to a stop.

 _Bang_ , _bang_ , _bang_ , went the three cars behind the engine as they bounced into each other, pushing the engine forward a few extra feet from the impact until they were barely a few centimeters from the woman. Sorin cringed.

Well! That had been close. Veli braced on the dashboard, pushed himself back over the divider so he wasn’t bent at the waist over it with his ass in the air. The woman was staring at the transport in shock from around her packages. She dropped them belatedly, eyes wide and hands over her mouth. “ _What are you doing_ ,” she snapped, fear and adrenaline laced through her voice and posture. “Driving a huge contraption like that through town! Are you _trying_ to _kill someone_?”

Sorin groaned, squeezing his eyes shut; Veli sighed, patted him on the shoulder. He left his hand there in case Sorin got any bright ideas about leaving the transport to go apologize as Zbignev rolled down the window and stuck his head out to yell back. Damn, someone was going to have to sit on him tonight to make sure he didn’t sneak out to take the brakes apart again. Who was on night duty… Chestibor. Ugh, no, that wouldn’t work. Chestibor would help him do it and then not tell anyone the brakes weren’t working. Veli was going to switch him with Bosko, first chance he got. Or maybe Andrej – no, Andrej had taken every night shift in the last week, that wasn’t fair. Hm.

“Mebbe hyu should look befur hyu come into de street,” Zbignev snarled out the window, poking his head out to glare at the lady. She blinked, mouth falling open.

“Well… you… it’s still dangerous,” she finished weakly, eyes apparently stuck on Zbignev’s teeth.

“Get out of the _road_ and let them _pass_ , Isabela,” called a man from the side, rolling his eyes. “You’re holding up traffic!”

“Jah, hyu iz holding up traffic,” Zbignev agreed, narrowing his eyes at her. “Ve haz somevere to be, _move it_.” Sorin put his head in his hands. Veli patted his shoulder again, doing his utmost not to start laughing. Poor homeboy, Veli sincerely doubted he’d have seen someone yell at a transport for nearly hitting them in Vulkanburg, with its narrow, sloping streets and too-controlling Spark.

“Jah, dot’s right,” Zbignev was shouting after the woman, who’d started picking up her packages and glaring at them again. “Get out ov de street, vot iz hyu problem. Look bot vays next time!”

“Don’t be rude,” Sorin groaned despairingly into his hands. “We nearly ran her over!”

Zbignev pulled his head back into the cabin, blinked at Sorin. “…Bot… she valked into a busy street vitout lookink?” he tried, shooting Veli a confused look. Veli shrugged. “Ve izn’t de only transport on de road, she kould haff gotten run over by somevun else—“

“Jah,” Veli drawled, “bot dot iz no excuse for der rudeness.” He nodded sternly. “Next time hyu chust say, ‘ho madam vill hyu please get de hell out of de vay, ve iz tryink to ektually use de paved drivink road for der drivink.’” Sorin groaned, removing his hands from his face so he could thump his head into the steering wheel. Veli ignored this very politely, continuing. “’Do hyu perhaps need a doctor for hyu brain, Miz Jay-Valker, hy iz verra vorried about hyu ability to remember de korrekt use for der crossvalk tventy steps to hyu right—‘”

“Stop it,” Sorin snapped, and sat up and started the engine again.

“Vot?” Veli asked, letting his eyes go wide. “Hy vosn’t—“

“ _Captain_ ,” Sorin bit out. Veli’s mouth snapped closed. “I said _stop_.What is _with_ you today, you’re being really annoying.” He rolled down his window and stuck his head out, calling a real apology to the woman as she scurried across the street. Veli winced and sat back, removing himself from the cabin entirely.

Damn, too far. Shit. He should have just gone back to the other car when he saw everything was alright. He _knew_ he should have. He probably shouldn’t have come up at all, it wasn’t like Sorin was alone up here—

“Hy tink dot sign says hyu turn right here,” Zbignev said, and Veli turned to see him pointing at another overly ornate sign post, various arrows indicating that a traveler was to turn left towards the main gate or right towards the west gate.

“Hm?” Sorin said, sounding distracted. “Oh. Crap,” and hurriedly corrected so they were in the right position to turn right smoothly. Oh, look, escape route!

“Hy’ll go tell de others ve is nearly dere,” Veli said, and didn’t really wait for a response before opening the back door and the connecting door to the next car and jumping the short distance. The doors closed behind him with a clang. Veli went to do his job.

* * *

When Veli had escaped from Vulkanburg about seven months ago, he’d decided it’d probably be worth the hassle to drag the cute, fiery townie boy along with him for information, even _after_ he’d gotten his back burned to shit. They’d had to run all night, which with the blood loss had turned out to be a bit of a drain on Veli’s energy reserves, so the morning after they’d taken refuge in a tree instead of fighting a pack of wolves that had picked up their trail. Veli had admittedly been a little high on adrenaline, from the chase and the injuries and a fun little tussle with a bear with a metal paw just before – anyway, he’d not really been at his clearest. And the townie – well, he’d been _looking_ , Veli noticed, quick little appreciative glances, too fast for most people to catch, and when Veli hauled Sorin up the tree and they’d ended up chest to chest, Sorin’s arms around Veli’s neck and his legs around Veli’s hips...

And it made sense, see, because probably he came from a place that wouldn’t take well to a man throwing that kind of look at another man, so Veli – well. He’d noticed that Sorin smelled _good_ , under the lava and the burned meat smell, he’d been carrying him half the night, and he was cute and he was interested and Veli – kissed him.

And then his brain finally fired along the right channels, and he figured out why Sorin smelled so good and comforting and nice. But at that point it was far too late to take it back.

* * *

By the time the caterpillar had come to a complete, bouncing stop, Veli had gathered the nine other members of the guard detail, given a run-down of what he’d seen of the town, handed out rotations (he went with Bosko for night duty), removed the braids on his uniform that identified him as a captain (the Baron didn’t _send_ captains on a basic escort detail, not with just a squad to command), and given himself a good talking to about what was and was not appropriate levels of teasing with the Heterodyne (and inappropriateness of pulling the Heterodyne’s pigtails, ugh, get it together Velimir).

So when they all got out of the transport and took up positions around Sorin, Veli fell into step behind him without really thinking about it. But Sorin only gave him a distracted smile and turned to say hello to the guard walking up to them from the gate. Veli relaxed.

“Herr Petrescu?” the guard called, looking Sorin up and down. His eyes flicked to the jaegers arrayed behind him for a second, didn’t look any of them in the eye – pretty typical disdain for constructs, huh. Well the Spark was into machines, Sorin had said, -- before falling back on Sorin, who nodded. “Excellent! Welcome to Blecherville. Professor Blecher asked us to bring you into his office, he’s caught up in the lab and may be… a while.” His smile went a little strained. “I guess you would know about that already, though.”

Sorin gave a thin smile back, taking on a set to his shoulders the guard had started to call the ‘skittish customer’ look. “I do know that problem,” he said easily, following the guard through the door. Veli kept pace, looking around at the—actually, it looked like these walls were _gilded_. “I’d say breaking through messes with your sense of time, but honestly it happened to me more before!” The guard smiled, starting to relax.

“It probably just took longer to finish things.”

“Maybe,” Sorin agreed vaguely, looking around. “This is a really large corridor, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, it’s that way to bring in deliveries,” the guard explained, and started giving a long, winding account of the machinery that was occasionally delivered. Veli tuned him out, took in the bars connecting the walls and ceilings. All that fancy metal probably came off in sheets if you knocked them out. Lots of effort to decorate a delivery hallway!

They went down a smaller, but still lavishly ornamented hallway off to the right, up stone steps carved with Blecherville’s coat of arms, and then down a hallway with huge, embroidered tapestries and only slightly smaller, solid oak doors, before the guard finally pushed one of them open and ushered them into – a study that would not hold two Sparks and eleven jaegers, Veli noted, amused. Considering the Spark knew how many of them were coming, that was a neat little trick to try to get Sorin alone, or at least closer to.

Well, fine, then. Veli could play the intimidation game, too. He glanced behind him as he followed Sorin in, at Milosh, who was going on seven feet tall and not disproportionate, and at Chestibor, who most people thought looked a bit rotund until you realized it was padding over hundreds of pounds of solid muscle, and gestured them into the room behind them. The others got the hint as soon as they saw the size of the room and fanned out along the hallway, creating a nice little gamut for anyone walking down the hallway to pass in order to get to the office.

Then the guard left, and they waited.

Sorin sat down in one of the vistors’ chairs, looking around the room and humming – not quite heterodyning, they’d have to stop him doing that, this Spark didn’t know any more than that Sorin was a new Spark who the Baron thought needed a fast-tracked education -- just… a low, atonal thinking noise, eyes narrowed as he looked absently around the room. After a few minutes, Milosh shrugged, and went over to inspect the Professor’s shelves, ignoring the stepladder in lieu of just reaching for some of the pretty trinkets up at the top. Chestibor looked from Sorin to Veli, and then went to stand behind the desk, poking at the piles of papers and tiny machines that were apparently being used as paperweights.

“Hoy, Master,” he called, picking one shaped like a knight on a horse up and winding it. “Look et dis vun, it has a leedle lance—ho!” He grinned as the lance was lowered and the horse legs started running.

Sorin glanced over, raised an eyebrow. “Hm, neat,” he said, sounding completely distracted. “Put it back, though, I don’t want him to walk in and find us sitting at his desk, it’s rude.”

That was actually exactly why Chestibor was doing it, but Veli held his tongue. Chestibor pouted. “Hy iz not sittink, hy iz _schtanding behind_ hiz desk,” he said, innocently, letting his eyes go wide.

Sorin sighed. “You’re rifling through his desk, then,” he corrected himself. “Put it down, Chestibor. You too, Milosh.” Milosh, who’d picked up what looked like a rather expensive crystal and was looking through it at something else on the top shelf, cringed and put it back down guilty.

“Sorry, Master,” he said, sheepishly.

Ugh, so much for that, then. Chestibor’s eyes cut to Veli, who shrugged and nodded at the corner behind. Not quite as good, but… Chestibor sighed.

“Fine, fine,” he muttered, and plopped the little toy back onto its stack of paper. It took two more steps forward and went still, and Chestibor went to casually lean against the corner Veli’d indicated. Veli made his way over to the chair Sorin was sitting in and leaned up against the backrest. He got a distracted look for his trouble and then Sorin was off in his thoughts again.

Blah. Well, if Sorin didn’t want to share, Veli wouldn’t ask. He spent the next fifteen minutes watching the clock.

The Professor coming in was almost a relief, for all it made Sorin stiffen up with nerves immediately. The man was short and skinny, with broad shoulders and a full, gray beard, old knobbly elbows visible through his lab coat and knuckles covered in what looked and smelled like machine oil, which he wiped absently on a rag that must have once been white before shoving it into the front pocket of his coat. He scanned the room, taking in Milosh at the shelves and Chestibor in the corner behind his desk and Veli behind Sorin’s chair, before his eyes rested on Sorin himself and he nodded, smiled thinly. “You must be Petrescu – Sorin, do I have that right?” He walked over and held out a hand. Sorin stood and took it. “I’m Blecher.”

Veli fought not to scowl right in the Spark’s face. Sorin let people call him by his first name all the time, but it was because he was nice and friendly and didn’t like to make people feel uncomfortable, and the more important point was he _let people call him that_. The fact that the Professor just assumed stank of condescension, like Sorin being younger and untrained meant he wasn’t worth the common courtesy of asking permission to be familiar.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Professor,” Sorin said, not even blinking at the use of his first name. Blecher released his hand, and they both flexed their fingers subtly as their arms fell – o _ho_ , not so confident in his position after all, looked like their Professor felt he had something to prove! Veli’s eyes shot to Milosh, who’d had a good look at the handshake too. Milosh’s eyes twinkled back.

“Mm, pleasure’s mine,” Blecher said negligently, turning to walk behind his desk, lowering himself down with a sigh – arthritic? How old was the good Professor, anyway? “Sit, boy, you’re making me feel old! So I hear our fearsome overlord thinks you’re a bit late to the party, as it were.”

Sorin sat, ran his hands through his hair. “I think he’s _right_ , really,” he said, sounding sheepish. “I was training to be a _blacksmith_ until about seven months ago--”

“When you accidentally overthrew a Viscountess?” the Professor finished knowingly. Sorin’s mouth snapped closed, and he flushed a little. The Professor snorted, waved it away. “Boy, if that’s the worst you did breaking through with no training, you’re probably one of the better ones. The Baron certainly thinks so, anyway, with all the fuss he’s making over you,” and his eyes slid, pointedly, to Veli.

Ah, and there, finally, was acknowledgement that they weren’t the only two in the room. Veli grinned, and said absolutely nothing.

Sorin gave the Professor a sheepish smile. “Ah, yeah, that was nice of him – oh, but I haven’t introduced you! Professor, this is… _Sergeant_ Velimir, and Milosh and Chestibor.” Mmgh, little hesitation on the lie there, and then he stressed the title. Veli was going to get him to sit down with Blazh at some point and drill on lying, really he was.

Milosh and Chestibor were looking at Veli like wolves who’d been handed a steak dinner. Oh well, better “Sarge” in every sentence than “sir!” That had got old _fast_ when he’d first gotten himself promoted.

Anyway, the Professor gave them all cursory nods, like they were inconveniently placed and slightly ugly furniture – lies, jaegerkin were the best looking monsters in Europa! – and turned right back to Sorin. The conversation moved on to what Sorin was actually going to be learning, and the first time the words “power relay” came up Veli tuned right out.

The Spark was sitting forward in his chair, voice seesawing with harmonics as he talked about his work in a way that implied he probably didn’t actually need an audience, really. Probably enough to catch Sorin up in – wait. Veli looked at Sorin, and he was nodding along very politely, and sounded like he was asking good, intelligent questions, but… he wasn’t really – Veli frowned, waited until the Professor turned to rifle through his desk for something, and gave the underside of the chair a very swift kick. Sorin startled, sat up straighter, shot Veli a _look_ before turning back to the Professor and _actually paying attention_ this time. Chestibor and Milosh pinched their lips together very tightly instead of laughing.

The Professor didn’t notice anything, still chattering on about – electric charges? Ambient -- whatever. Definitely a bit caught up in his projects, that one.

It was another half hour before the Professor was interrupted by a knock on the door. Veli turned a little, just enough to have a clear view of the nervous minion – not much older than Sorin was, maybe twenty-one, twenty-two -- sticking his head in, eyes going to the jaegers quickly before stopping on the Professor. They didn’t get less nervous. Huh.

“Professor Blecher, you told me to come get you if—“ the minion trailed off awkwardly, but Blecher was already standing and striding to the door.

“Yes, thank you, Costache. Apologies, Sorin, we can continue this tomorrow, say… early afternoon? Give you a chance to settle in.”

“That’s fine,” Sorin said, also standing.

“Excellent!” the Professor said, clearly halfway to whatever lab he was heading towards and not listening to a word Sorin said. “Meet me down by lab 3 after lunch, then. Costache, bring Sorin to his rooms.” And then he eeled past the minion and was gone.

Sorin sighed, turned to Costache with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that,” he said, running a hand through his hair.

The minion blinked at Sorin, as though he was surprised to find someone else in the room, and relaxed, just like that. “Whatever for,” he asked, smiling back at Sorin. “That’s a completely normal conversation with the Professor. Better than most, even. If you’ll come this way, please, Mister…”

“Sorin,” Sorin said, looking a little pained. “I mean, Sorin Petrescu, but just Sorin is fine.”

The minion smiled a bit more, opening the door wider so that Sorin could walk through. “Sorin. And I’m Costache, if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Sorin responded, smiling, and kept up the small talk as the rest of the squad fell in around him, just like he didn’t even notice – which was right, actually, and had taken forever to train into him, he’d kept stiffening up when they first went out and drawing attention to it, and the whole squad had had to work double-time to make themselves look non-threatening enough to do proper surveillance.

The minion sure did stiffen up, but Veli didn’t care as much about how comfortable _he_ looked, and anyway Sorin got him calmed down again in the next minute.

It took about five minutes to get to the rooms Sorin’d been assigned -- two bedrooms, with two large beds each, and a private bath off a common area, which would definitely be enough room for Sorin and the whole squad, since they didn’t mind sharing and slept in shifts anyway… hard to tell if it was a snub or not; the Professor hadn’t seemed particularly knowledgable about jaeger sleeping preferences, but you never knew – and the moment the minion’d checked that everything they needed had gotten there and left them to settle in, Sorin walked across to the window overlooking the town and went right back to whatever was going on in his head.

Veli exchanged a look with the rest of the squad and shrugged. “Hokay, ve check de rooms,” he said, wandering over towards the first bedroom himself.

“Jah, Sarge.”

“Hyu got it, Sarge.”

“Hy take de second bedroom, Sarge—“

Veli closed the door very pointedly behind him, and grinned and rolled his eyes at the snickers he could hear through it.

* * *

“He schtill at de vindow?” Veli asked, as Blazh stuck his head into the bathroom half an hour later.

“Jah, Sarge,” Blazh said, without missing a beat. Veli narrowed his eyes at him, almost entirely in jest. Blazh blinked innocently back.

He actually looked innocent, too. Blazh had the best poker face on a jaeger Veli had ever seen, and Veli had been mentored by Captain “Wallface” Lazar. He snorted, and turned back to poking around in the cabinets for something that could be suspicious. Blazh snickered behind him.

“No, bot he iz, actually. Hy dun know vot he’s looking at, ve think he may chust be fuguing.”

Veli nodded, picking up a—metal thing and holding it up to the light. What even was this? He crushed it and threw the bits back into the cabinet. “Something set him off ven ve got into town,” he supplied. “He’s been all distracted.

“Vhich reminds me, ecktually.” He turned to look at Blazh over his shoulder. Blazh was leaning up against the doorway, watching Veli rummage disinterestedly, occasionally scenting the air with his tongue. “Do us a favor und sit him down ven he comes out of it tonight und drill a poker face into him, vill hyu? Dis Spark iz a bit full ov himself, bot he’s not stupid, und ve iz gonna be here long enough for him to notice ven Sorin schlips up.”

Blazh grinned. “Missed a cue, did he?” he asked.

“Nah, just stressed de delivery too much.”

“Hm,” Blazh said, nodding thoughtfully. “Jah, hokay, hy giff him a lesson.

“Iz veird though, jah?” he continued. “Hy mean, he’s not usually dis schtock in hiz own head.”

Veli shrugged. “Schmott boy stuff,” he offered.

“Mm, but he’s not really hyu typical schmott boy, iz he?”

Veli looked over his shoulder again. “Hm?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Blazh looked at him flatly. “Hyu know vot hy mean,” he complained. “He’s not—vell, he’s not vot hy vould call a _fun_ Heterodyne, hy guess is vot hy mean.”

Veli raised the other eyebrow. “Two days after hy met him, he commandeered a mail dirigible und made dem change destinations for a jaeger outpost,” he said flatly. “He made me _throw him up dere_ , und ven hy got dere dey vos all on deir _knees_ und he vos _menacing dem vit a wrench_.”

“…Fair point,” Blazh admitted, “bot… Veli, he vos _breaking through_ den, _all_ Sparks iz interesting ven breaking through. Vot has he done _since_ , iz vot hy mean. No, vait, hy iz not complaining or insulting him,” he said, as Veli started to open his mouth. “Really, not! Hy iz happy to haff _any_ Heterodyne, und he iz nize und schmott und friendly und good to be around, und ennyvay it makes _honor guard_ more interesting. He’s chust—“ Blazh sighed, gestured helplessly.

“…Hm,” Veli said, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes at Blazh. “Hy think hyu iz wrong. Hyu veren’t _dere_ , it vosn’t just de breakthrough. He just… hazn’t had opportunity to prove me right yet, iz all.”

Blazh gave him a blank look, and rolled his eyes. “Und _hyu_ haff a crush,” he teased, “but, Jah, Captain, if hyu say so.”

Veli sputtered. “Hoy!” He wasn’t _that_ bad! And anyway, it didn’t mean he wasn’t right!

“Ennyvay,” Blazh said, “de rest ov de rooms iz secure. Hyu vant hy go und get food?”

“…Vait a bit,” Veli said. “Iz schtill early.”

“Hokay,” Blazh said agreeably. “Hy leave de bathroom in hyu capable hands.”

He ducked out of the room, slid the door closed behind him. Veli glared at it for another minute, and then turned back to the cabinets, decisively.

He was right about this. He _was_.

* * *

Sorin stayed at the window for another good hour, staring out over the town and humming. He _did_ fall into heterodyning once or twice, but not so bad they had to snap him out of it in case someone walked by – the doors, it turned out, weren’t very good with the noise cancelling, which was annoying. Veli had Milosh and Dario take the first shift outside the door, and their low chatter worked well enough to cancel any noise coming from inside the rooms, so it’d only be a problem if someone tried to come in.

Lyubo went over at one point, just to check on him, but Sorin made a neutral distracted noise and waved him away, so they all just left him alone. It was almost dinnertime before the humming stopped, and he straightened and turned like he’d been having a conversation with someone, crossing his arms and scowling fiercely. “Okay, no, it’s weird,” he said, leaning back against the window. “It’s weird, right? There is something up with this town and I don’t like it.”

The entire guard paused, Premisl nearly dropping his hand of cards in surprise – Stani didn’t even sneak a look at them, Veli noticed distractedly. “…Vat’s weird?” he asked, standing up from where he’d been pretending to write reports at the little desk in the corner. Sorin looked at him in surprise, completely in the room with them for the first time since they entered the town.

“The children,” he said, like it was obvious. “Or… well, the no children. There are no children _anywhere_.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Master Sorin,” Stanislava called, sticking her head through the door the next morning. “Iz time to get op! Hy don’t know vhere Bosko iz, bot iz nearly seven, und hyu sai—ho, found him. Iz dot breakfast?”

“Not ennymore,” Bosko practically sang, grinning like a cat who’d got the canary and the cream and topped it off with a pinch of catnip. Milosh and Dario snickered from their relaxed sprawl on the floor at the foot of the bed, obviously not guilty in the least. Sorin, on the other hand, who was still holding the last piece of bread with raspberry jam, suddenly rather felt like he had that time his father had caught him and Ludy raiding the kitchen for birthday cake when he was nine.

“Um… sorry,” he said, sheepishly, looking from the toast to Stani, who was standing with her hands on her hips and glaring at the pile of jaeger at the foot of the bed, every inch of her radiating pinched-lipped disapproval. “I’ll… order more. Um, would you like this?” He held out the toast.

Stani looked up at him, going from annoyed to genuinely surprised in three seconds flat – like she couldn’t even imagine a situation where Sorin would have to give up toast for her. “Vat? Oh, no, Master, hyu don’t haff to apologize, iz hyu breakfast!” she assured him. “Hyu eat dot, iz fine. _Dese_ gluttons, on de odder hand, should haff thought ov somevun odder den demselves!” She went back to glaring, this time at Bosko, who continued to look horribly unrepentant. He waved at her with jam-sticky fingers, and then pointedly licked one of them off. Stani huffed.

Sorin hesitated, looking at the toast. He… actually did want to eat it, was the thing. He was _hungry_ still, even after splitting a breakfast tray the cooks must have thought would feed twelve people with only three jaegers, and the raspberry jam had proved to be the best thing on the tray… He sighed, and guiltily took a bite. “I’ll get more, I promise,” he mumbled around his mouthful of toast.

“Don’t talk vit hyu mouth full,” Bosko said hypocritically, bopping Sorin on the head casually as he continued to lick at his hand for the final traces of jam. “Iz uncivilized.”

“Und don’t be guilty und go get dem more, either,” Dario ordered from the floor, bouncing up to look over the footboard and grin toothily at Sorin, completely ignoring the irate jaeger in the doorway. “Ve schtole dot breakfast fair und square, iz deir own fault for being asleep ven it come.”

Sorin swallowed his toast. “I was also asleep when it came, though,” he pointed out, raising an eyebrow. “You woke me up.”

“Hyu dun count,” Dario sniffed disdainfully. “Ov course _hyu_ gets some breakfast, hyu vos hungry!”

Well, Sorin couldn’t deny _that_. He was a twenty-year-old boy, and yesterday had been… mm, stressful. And it hadn’t been helped by Veli setting Blazh on him after dinner to practice lying – apparently his performance in the Professor’s study had been below par. And Sorin didn’t actually think Veli was _wrong_ , was the thing, it’s just that _three hours_ of “Schtop lookink up ven thinking of a lie, Master,” “No, look me in de eye,” “Master, hy haff _met hyu sister_ , hy know her name iz Ludmilla, hyu iz supposed to be _lyink_ ,” “Pay attention, Master, dis could save hyu _life_ vun day” seemed needlessly long.

That aside…

“…I’m getting more,” Sorin said. Dario, Bosko, and Milosh all groaned as Stani crossed her arms, looking smug. “No, I am. I was just _thinking_ – I mean, I wasn’t thinking – argh!” He sighed and restarted his thought. “You’re going to make me feel bad about not providing for my people, Dario,” he told him, forcing his face into a severe expression. “Is that what you want?”

“Oh, no _fair_ veaponizing dat,” Dario complained as Stani cackled behind him. He pouted, big eyes going huge and liquid in the best impression of a sad puppy Sorin had ever _seen_. Sorin held the expression another ten seconds, then gave in and laughed, too, flopping back onto the bed and covering his eyes with an arm, sighing. Red _fire_ , it was early still, and he was full and happy and comfortable, _why_ did he want to wake up so early agai—

The children.

Just like that, Sorin’s good mood drained away into nothing.

He sat up, swung his legs off the bed, and stood, turning to survey the damage they’d done to the bed. Urgh. Considerable. “Can someone clean this up, please, I’m going to… go and get another two trays.”

“Master--?” Milosh started, sounding surprised. Sorin waved him off, dredged up a smile.

“We have to get going, soon, and I don’t want to leave without making sure everyone’s actually gotten something to eat--“

“Iz really hokay, Master Sorin,” Stani started, “hy vos chust joking a leedle—“

“--Ve ken go und get it, Master,” Bosko tried, “hyu don’t haff to vorry—“

“—Hy keept dis toast,” Dario said, holding up a piece of bread with marmalade on it. The other three jaegers froze, turned as one to stare at him accusingly. He quailed, looking guilty, and held it out to Sorin. “…hyu ken haff it, Master, or giff it to somevun else if hyu vant…”

Sorin cringed. Great, now he’d upset them, on top of everything else. “No,” he said to Dario. “Go ahead and keep it, Dario, really, I’ll just go get some more.” He patted Dario on the shoulder, squeezed past Stani, and strode across the common area as quickly as he could, not looking at anyone. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Veli turn from where he was talking to Premisl, open his mouth to say something—

\--Sorin closed the door behind him with a _snap_ , slumped against it, closed his eyes and breathed.

He didn’t… exactly regret the decision to take up the name and the responsibilities of being the Heterodyne – on the good days, he actually enjoyed it, and he genuinely _liked_ his guard, and it was _fun_ to take something solid and cold and _real_ and turn it into something impossible, he’d never even imagined –

He didn’t regret the decision, but sometimes, when he was stuck or stressed or stumbling under the weight of eleven expectant stares, sometimes he wished it had never been an option at all.

He took another breath, sighed it out, and then opened his eyes and went to find a minion to ask for another two breakfast trays.

He wasn’t surprised at all when Andrej appeared at his elbow a few minutes later, hands in his pockets, and hat pulled low so the brim blocked the view to his eyes, but he didn’t say anything, so Sorin let it go.

* * *

“Mebbe dere iz kids over dere!”

“Lyubo, that is a food stand.”

“Kids like food!”

“Lyubo, that is _dried and salted beef_.”

“Kids like beef!”

“We’re not here to eat, we’re here to try to find information!”

“Ve ken eat _und_ find information!”

“You just had breakfast!”

“Hy iz a growink boy.”

“In your two hundreds?”

“Hy didn’t say hy vos growink _op_.”

“… *snort* Fine, _one bag_.”

“Yay! Oh, mebbe dere iz kids _dere_ , too.”

“In the _hat store_?”

“Kids like hats!”

“ _Lyubo_.”

* * *

The problem was that Sorin was kind of enjoying himself.

The problem was that, three hours into wandering around the market and the square, dragging Lyubo out of the hat shop and eating all the food they came across and eying the unnecessarily ornate lamp posts with the interesting exposed wiring with what Sorin realized in hindsight was probably _far_ too much interest, he’d still not run across any sign that there had ever been a child in this town.

Not one.

For heaven’s sake, there didn’t even seem to be a _school_ , and while Sorin acknowledged that not all towns were large enough for a school, Blecherville definitely was.

“Mebbe dey go to school in der Cathedral,” Lyubo suggested, as they turned a corner into a slightly less busy area, apparently comprised almost entirely of practical shops and stalls. “De monks do dat sometimes, jah? Teach der children to be goot und schmott und… holy und tings. Ooh, bakery!”

“I don’t know how you can even _think_ about food at this point,” Sorin said wryly, walking right past the bakery without pausing.

“Awww.”

“I guess that could be it,” Sorin said, pretending that he hadn’t heard. “We could look in there on the way back, I suppose. How much time until I have to be back?”

“Uhhh… about two hours, hy tink,” Lyubo said, turning to walk backwards and squint at the clock that was barely visible over the roofs. “Jah, iz chust eleven.”

“We have some time, then,” Sorin mused, and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Vell, yaz, but… Master, iz ve gonna spend der whole morning out here?” Lyubo asked, speeding up so he was standing at Sorin’s elbow again. “Hy mean… odder den der Cathedral, dere iz not much more to _see_ , iz all. Not unless ve iz gonna check all de _houses_.”

“I know,” Sorin admitted, frowning moodily at the glassware shop they were passing. “I just— Oh, a foundry!”

It was, indeed, a foundry. From here, Sorin could see the smith at work, pounding out a long, thin tool of some sort – seemed like it might be a trowel from here, but Sorin couldn’t really be sure without a closer look.

Next to him, Lyubo groaned exaggeratedly. Sorin elbowed him in the side without looking. It couldn’t hurt to just _watch_ for a little, right?

The smith put his hammer down, held the piece up to the light take a look at the progress. The movement meant he’d turned to look out over the street, and he caught sight of Sorin just standing there watching, blinked at him and raised an eyebrow before plunging the piece into a bucket of water and stepping out from behind the anvil. “Can I help you, lad?”

Oops. “No, sorry,” Sorin said, walking closer so the man wouldn’t have to shout across the street to talk to him. Lyubo followed, hands laced behind his neck casually. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, I was just watching.”

“Ah,” the smith said, leaning back against the anvil and crossing his arms over his chest. He smiled at Sorin, looking amused. “Interested in smithwork, are you? Bit old to start learning now, if you haven’t already. Or are you a journeyman passing through?”

“I’m—“ Sorin started, and then stopped, sighed, rephrased. “I _was_ an apprentice until about seven months ago,” he explained. “I was in Vulkanburg, though, and my master—“ he trailed off, not sure how to explain what had happened without giving away too much of who he was. His cover story didn’t actually _include_ Master Iliescu at all, and just telling the truth would make him too identifiable, if news of what had happened in Vulkanburg had even reached this far.

“Ah,” the smith said knowingly, like that was enough for him to fill in the blanks. He gave Sorin a sympathetic look. “I heard a bit about that not too long ago. Bad business. Sorry, lad.”

“Mm,” Sorin agreed, glad he hadn’t said anything after all. Lyubo shifted next to him, just enough for Sorin to notice he was taking his hand off his long sword. Sorin very firmly did not roll his eyes. Honestly…

The smith’s eyes flicked to Lyubo, too, but his posture didn’t change, so Sorin didn’t think he’d noticed the letting-go-of-the-large-weapon-strapped-to-his-back thing.

“So, what brings you to Blecherville, then?” he asked. “You part of that visiting Spark’s entourage, or what?”

Sorin blinked. “…uh, yeah,” he said, at a bit of a loss. Lyubo made a huffing noise next to him that was probably a laugh. Sorin ignored him.

“Mm,” the smith said, like that explained everything. “Not a bad way to go, minioning. Good use of what you learned, and if you’re traveling you’ll probably pick some more up.”

“Yeah, it’s not bad,” Sorin agreed lamely. Wow, okay, this was awkward, how to change the subject before he asked--

“How’s your Spark, then?” the smith asked, and Sorin gave up and just resigned himself to barreling through this extremely uncomfortable conversation.

“He’s alright, I guess,” Sorin said. “Pretty normal as far as Sparks go, I don’t know. My only experience with Sparks before all of this was the Viscountess, and she was kind of… you know, not really a regular in the marketplace.”

“He iz verra silly,” Lyubo interjected, and his voice was _definitely_ shaking a little, Sorin noticed, because Lyubo was an _asshole_ , “but verra nize, too. _So boring_.” Sorin rolled his eyes.

“Mm,” he said noncommittally, and then turned back to the smith. “What about you,” he asked, casually as he could. “What’s it like living under Professor Blecher?”

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to get as an answer, honestly, though he’d suspected the response wouldn’t be favorable. What the smith actually did was go from open, polite interest to locked tighter than the vault in Mechanicsburg (Sorin had been told his name was Franz and he wasn’t a morning person, which was excellent information that made Sorin very sure he never wanted to rely on the Heterodyne fortune for anything).

“He’s very nice, as well,” he said flatly, and pushed off the anvil to walk around to the other side, picked up his tools again. “Sorry, I’ve a lot of work to do, you understand.”

Sorin cringed. Well, _that_ could have gone better. Damn. “Absolutely,” he said. “Sorry, I’ve been distracting you.”

“No trouble,” the smith said, pumping the bellows on the forge and jamming what at this distance was _definitely_ a trowel into the fire. _Bang, bang, bang_ , went his hammer. Sorin winced again.

“Right,” he said, pitching his voice to be heard over the hammering automatically. “Nice talking to you, sir, I’ll—“

The smith paused. “Can you hand me the large tongs to your right?” he asked, eyes on Sorin steady and—kind, actually. Not angry at all. Sorin glanced at Lyubo, who shrugged. They still had time, then.

It looked like the smith didn’t have any apprentices to help him out. Sorin didn’t think he was surprised. “…Sure,” he said, and walked forward, picking up the tongs on the way.

Sorin got a little caught up in the familiar rhythm of the forge, after that, to the point that he didn't really notice how much time had passed until Bosko, not Lyubo, hailed the foundry. Sorin looked up, seeing Bosko leaning against the opening of the forge like maybe he’d been waiting a while, huge radar ears twitching this way and that lazily, like he wasn’t even really thinking about scanning the street while he did it. Lyubo was nowhere in sight. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, nodding to the smith, “bot iffen hyu could find a good stopping point, hy haff to collect hyu helper over dere.” His eyes flicked to Sorin, sparkling with amusement. “Iz nearly noon,” he told him, leaving off any sort of name or title. “Hyu haff somevhere to be soon, jah?”

Ack, right. He wiped off his forehead on his sleeve, pulled off his gloves, turned to the smith as he started to untie his borrowed apron – wow, actually, Sorin hadn’t even gotten around to asking his name! “Sorry to leave you hanging like this,” he said, hanging up the apron. “He’s right, I do have to be somewhere soon…”

The smith laughed. “Yes, an hour and a half of free labor, and I didn’t even have to train you up first,” he said, grinning. “Lad, if this is taking advantage, I could stand to have it happen more often. Come back again, if you’ve some time, I’ll be happy to have the extra hands.”

Sorin grinned back, relieved and happy and _relaxed_ , what a miracle _that_ was. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

“Go on, before your Spark gets annoyed at you for being late and you get your free time cut,” the smith said, and turned back to his anvil. Sorin blinked – oh, right, he also hadn’t told the man who exactly he was --  and then decided to just let it be.

“Thanks again,” he called, jogging out of the hot air of the foundry into the cooler breeze swirling down the street. Bosko fell in next to him, mouth pointedly pinched closed, and to his credit didn’t start teasing until they were well out of earshot, around the corner onto the main road and well on their way back to the castle.

“Jah, don’t be late or hyu Spark vill be annoyed vit hyu,” he started, elbowing Sorin in the side hard enough Sorin stumbled a little trying to catch his footing. “Vot a hardass, hyu Spark. Soch a stickler for de time—“

“Go kiss an egg,” Sorin said, grinning.

“Shore ting, Master,” Bosko said easily, “bot hy vill haff to go find vun, und since hy haff to stay vit hyu den hyu vill haff to come, und vot vill hyu _Spark_ say—“ Sorin laughed, shaking his head in despair.

“I don’t know why I—“ _Bam_ , something rammed into the back of his legs. Next second, Bosko had grabbed him by the shoulder and the world whirled, and then the paving stones were under his feet again. He stumbled, caught himself, arms going out to steady himself on the solid wall of snarling jaeger between him and whatever had hit him.

He wasn’t hurt. “Stop!” he snapped, trying to step around Bosko to see what had hit him—Bosko’s arm shot out, shoved Sorin back behind him again. _“Bozidar_ ,” Sorin snarled. “Stand _down_ , I’m not hurt!”

“ _You’re_ not hurt,” a woman’s voice cried, full of anger and genuine distress. “What about my _baby_ , then? You could have _hurt her_.”

Sorin had moved around Bosko so fast the world almost blurred again. Bosko’s hand landed on his shoulder, as though to move him back, but Sorin shrugged it off, stomped forwards towards the woman and the -- that was a _pram_ , that must have been what hit his legs, glory Hallelujah there was someone in this town who was reproducing—

The pram was empty.

There was a rushing sound in his ears. It took Sorin a second to realize it must be his own blood.

“Aunt Liana,” cried a male voice – about Sorin’s age, maybe a year younger at most, not a child – and a young man came dashing out of an alley Sorin hadn’t even noticed on the way past, tucked in between two buildings with roofs overhanging it, hiding it almost from view. “Aunt Liana, there you are, come on Auntie, let’s go back…” He reached up and took the distressed woman’s shoulders, turned her back towards the alley – she wouldn’t let go of the empty pram, was objecting, saying she needed to take her daughter for a walk, Sorin couldn’t _breathe_ – smiled at Sorin nervously. “I’m sorry, sir, she’s… well, she’s not well—“

Sorin stared at him. He had no idea what his face was doing, but it must not have been very friendly, because the man flinched and rushed his aunt back into the alley, muttering something to her Sorin couldn’t make out.

Sorin felt a bit like he was floating, and a bit like the world was suddenly in bright, painfully sharp focus. He felt like maybe he wanted to burn the world down, like he wanted to go after that man and shake him until answers fell out his _ears_ —

“Master Sorin,” Bosko called behind him, sounding worried. Well, probably he should be. Sorin turned, looked him straight in the eye.

“Bosko,” he said calmly. “I need you to go and get lost, and not find your way again until you’ve located someone under the age of fifteen.”

“No vay, Master,” Bosko said. “Hy iz not leavink hyu alone in dis place vitout—“

“I’m sorry,” Sorin interrupted, still calm, he wasn’t mad, he was—he— “maybe I missed it. What _part_ of _what I just said_ sounded to you like it was _up for debate_?”

Bosko’s mouth slammed closed, eyes wide. “…Yaz, Master,” he said finally. “Hy… chust… let me call somevun to brink hyu back first, chust dat und hy go.”

“…Fine,” Sorin said. “ _Go_.” Bosko went.

Sorin stood exactly where he was and breathed, slowly, let the world fall back into its usual fuzzy haze, and by the time Premisl swung into view at a run, less than five minutes later, Sorin was pretty sure he was _nearly_ completely out of the madness place. He still held up a hand when Premisl opened his mouth, halting whatever the jaeger was about to say. “Not now,” he said, and started walking towards the castle. “Later. Right now, I have to get to my lesson with the _good Professor_.”

* * *

Lab 3 was equipped with, among other things, four power generators, a long, solid, grounded wooden workbench with built-in shelves holding more tools than Sorin really quite knew what to do with, and a clank, maybe waist-high on Sorin, laid out and still on the workbench, front plate removed and sitting to the side of the machine proper to expose all the complicated, winding inner gears and wires that made it up.

Sorin lasted a full five minutes before he caved and started taking it apart to see if he could figure out how it worked.

Ten minutes after that, elbow deep in wires that he could not for the life of him identify as anything other than “superfluous” or maybe “going to overheat and make the whole machine cave in on itself in a fiery wreck,” Sorin got the _best idea_.

He started by ripping all the wires out. The insides of this clank were an overcomplicated _mess_ and he was going to make it better.

There was a little generator suspended in the barrel of the clank, and it looked like it would knock around a lot as it moved – oh, that gear was in the wrong place to allow it to walk, he moved it – but a lot of wires were connected to the generator in all directions, if he secured it he’d lose all four of the sockets on one side hmmmmmmmmmm no, he didn’t like it moving around like that, he’d just have to change where the wires connected to the hinges—yes, good, okay, now he could weld it to the back.

\--Oh no, wait, first he should probably reconnect the ligaments to the junction in the rear—ooh, what if he—yes, that should allow clear passage of power to—then maybe he—and wouldn’t it be _so neat_ if—

 _Whack_. Ow! Who _dared_ —he rounded on the weilder of the screwdriver that just came down on his fingers, snarling—no, wait, that was the Professor, oh, he—he’d been waiting for—

“Move _over_ , boy, do you want to blow up the lab? Disconnect that coupling _immediately_ —oh, I’ll do it. Here.” And he shoved Sorin to the side, reaching in and— _hey_ , Sorin had _just connected that_ —Oh!

“Oh,” he said aloud, eyes widening.

“Precisely,” the Professor said briskly, radiating smug. “I can see how you’re attempting to consolidate, but if you connect to the right quadrant instead of the top, you use less wire and the coupling doesn’t overheat in the first five minutes—“

“ _I_ see,” Sorin said, bending over the clank. Then he frowned. “No, but… but I wanted that free because—you could absolutely modify the voice box to act as a holding cell for the excess electricity created from the generator using fewer wires, and then it could act as a light and a generator and perhaps even a _weapon_ if you modulated it correctly but it won’t—“ Sorin glared at the clank.

“Hm?”

“It should work, but it won’t if you can’t connect to the right quadrant—“ He growled, frustrated. “Why can’t I connect to the top? Maybe if we siphon—“

“Oh,” the Professor said, looking at what Sorin was doing. “Oh! No, nonono I see what you mean, but if you disconnect _this coupling_ , and instead route the electricity through—“ he stopped talking, ripped a coupling out and made a few quick reconnections. Sorin stared.

“Why does that work? I can _tell_ it would but why—“

The Professor grinned. “I’ll tell you.”

Three hours later, their clank turned on a 365° axis and spat lightning with enough precision that it could shock (and, incidentally, blow up) the lamp on the opposite side of the room, and Dario had only had to throw something at Sorin’s head to stop him heterodyning twice. Or five times. But really, who was counting?

Sorin and the Professor were sat – well, slumped – on the work bench, watching their creation totter around the room and find new things to spit lightning at, which was somehow far cuter than it should have been. Sorin suspected he wasn’t completely out of the madness place, to be honest, but at the moment he was too exhausted to care. Next to him, the Professor was eating a sandwich from the tray that had magically appeared at some point while Sorin was Sparking, keeping up a cheerful, running commentary on joint stress and necessary energy levels and the dangers of overheating and what they should name it, without apparently any real need for Sorin’s input. Which was good, because Sorin felt like his brain was a little saturated at the moment.

“But overall,” the Professor said, “not bad at all for a first attempt. That _was_ your first attempt at a clank of that size, I take it?”

Sorin blinked. “…um, yes,” he admitted. “Well, I did the caterpillar, but that’s a transport, really, and there isn’t all that much you can do to improve a wheel at this point—it was that obvious, huh?”

“Mm,” Blecher said, leveling a wry look at Sorin. “Never build a power relay like that again. Unless you want to destroy the building you are standing in when you turn it on, of course.”

…Oops. “Yes sir,” he said, sheepishly.

“Good,” the Professor said, clapping Sorin roughly on the back. “Welcome to the future. Now, your caterpillar is the transport you drove up in?”

“…Yes sir,” Sorin said. “It’s nothing special really. It’s just a lava engine bolted to three wagons, and I set up a little bit of a forge around the engine…”

“Three wagons?” Blecher laughed. “You don’t travel light, do you?”

“…I travel with eleven jaegers,” Sorin pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

“Hm, that you do,” Blecher said, taking a bite out of his sandwich. “You should see if the Baron won’t let you trade up. Think how much more storage space you’d have if you just had intelligent clanks at as attendents – no food necessary, don’t need to sleep, and you don’t have to worry about them becoming too damaged to use! A part falls off, you just put another one on, good as new.”

Sorin stared, watching this man eat his sandwich and talk about the eleven—eleven _people_ Sorin’d been traveling with for nearly four months like they were inconvenient, slightly squishy machines. His eyes slid to Dario at the door, who was watching them silently, mouth closed, corners turned down. “I’m… not sure I agree,” he said slowly. “For one, I’d have to fuel the clanks somehow.”

“Pah,” the Professor said. “Pop a generator or two in your caterpillar, you’d have two good sized wagons to work with. Times are changing, my boy! Mark my words, twenty years from now there won’t _be_ any more constructs being made. They’ll have become completely obsolete, if they aren’t already.”

“Haha, ve sure iz preddy old,” Dario agreed, sounding far too cheerful. Sorin’s head shot up, but Dario was grinning, all teeth out. It wasn’t a friendly grin. “Older den hyu clanks, for sure! Makes sense dot ve iz behind in de science. All dot time conquering Europa over und over, de masters didn’t haff time to update us! Hy remember, ven ve sacked de Hapsburgs—“

Sorin pinched his lips together, but a huff of laughter escaped anyway. Dario stopped talking, raised an eyebrow. “Bless hyu,” he said, very politely. The Professor turned to look at Sorin. Sorin tried to look like he’d just sneezed. He suspected he’d done a pretty poor job, though, because the Professor’s mouth turned down at the corners.

“Hmmm,” he said.

Thankfully, Costache chose that moment to stick his head in the door, looking just as nervous as yesterday and significantly more stressed. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Professor,” he said, running a hand through his hair, “but… the newest attempt in the big lab—“

Blecher was on his feet before Costache could even finish his sentence. “Sorry about this,” he told Sorin. “We’ll have to pick up tomorrow. Same time, shall we say? Remember to shut down our little project tonight before you head off.” And he walked out, just like that, not even waiting for Sorin to agree. Costache gave Sorin an apologetic smile and followed.

Well, at least he didn’t have to come up with something to say?

“Hoo!” Dario said, and relaxed against the door. They must be out of earshot, then. “Dot vun vent to de madness place vun day und left hiz brain dere ven he come beck!”

“Hmmmm,” Sorin agreed, chewing on his lip as he thought. That… there had been something really creepy about that conversation. Sorin didn’t like how quickly Blecher had just dismissed constructs, like the fact that they had minds and thoughts and wishes of their own didn’t matter at all if they were inconvenient in some way. He didn’t like that Blecher was condescending, or that his sign was big enough to see fifteen minutes down the road, or that his town had no obvious citizens under the age of fifteen. He—

“Hoy,” Dario said. “Dun make me trow sumting again.” He flipped a bolt through his fingers menacingly. Sorin sighed, turned to look for his little clank. It had found a bit of rubble on the floor from the lamp, and was studiously attempting to light it on fire.

“Help me catch it so I can turn it off?” he asked, standing.

“Ho, sure,” Dario said, grinning wide again. He cracked his knuckles. “Jaeger versus clank, round vun!”

“Don’t actually destroy it, please.”

“Hy vould neffer!”

“Liar.”

* * *

The clank put up a surprisingly good fight, for something that barely came up to Sorin’s waist against a jaeger and a Spark. In the end, Dario tackled it from behind and held the lightning spitter against the stone floor while Sorin went in and turned it off. It was a little dented, and Sorin sincerely doubted that singed spot was going to clean easily, but the clank would turn back on again, so the two declared the operation a success and escaped before someone could come to see what the racket was about.

Dario left Sorin at the door to his rooms, saying something about going to find some dinner, which left Sorin to juggle door and clank at the same time. He managed to shoulder the damn thing open in the end, and lugged his prize over to the couch, where he plopped down next to the room’s only other occupant and set the clank on its feet. He flipped the switch to turn it back on, and the clank sputtered to life. It looked from Sorin to the new surroundings and back before toddling forward right into an armchair, bouncing backwards into the coffee table with an offended spray of static.

“…So, de lesson vent vell, den?” Veli asked, putting aside the schedule he’d been holding in favor of watching the clank carom off the furniture in the room dazedly.

“It… yes, actually,” Sorin admitted, leaning back against the cushions. Oh, wow, that was nice. He kept forgetting he was tired. “Which is kind of grating, since I don’t like Professor Blecher that much, but… well.” He gestured vaguely to his clank.

“Mm,” Veli said thoughtfully. “…iz it supposed to be buzzing at de chair like dat?”

Sorin blinked. Then he lunged forward off the couch and grabbed the clank, which stopped charging up its lightning spitter out of what Sorin assumed was shock and fell face first onto the carpet. Sorin very decisively hit the switch on the side of its neck that disabled the lightning spitter.

Veli cracked up. “Hyu—did – did hyu forget to turn off de _veapon_? Got’s leedle fish in trowsers, ahahahahahaha.”

Sorin sighed, blushing as he stood back up and righted his clank. “Yeah, yeah, go ahead and laugh,” he muttered, going back over to sit on the couch again and shove Veli in the shoulder as punishment. “Jerk.”

Veli shoved back, sending Sorin bouncing into the cushions, laughter calming to bouts of chuckles. “Hoo!” he said, wiping at his eyes as he grinned at Sorin, reached over and patted Sorin’s shoulder, mock-sympathetically. Sorin swatted at the hand – completely ineffectually, mind – and then gave in, slumping back against the pillows with a sigh. Veli was still smiling down at him, the ambient glow from his eyes and mouth creating slightly eerie light patterns on his face and the couch. Sorin smiled back.

“…Hi,” he said. “I feel like I haven’t seen you at all since we got here!”

Veli snickered, dropped his arm around Sorin’s shoulders and gave him a quick squeeze before tugging on one of Sorin’s curls and removing his arm. “Hi,” he said. “Hy iz still here.”

“Good,” Sorin told him. “…um, sorry about snapping at you in the transport, yesterday. I was just—“

Veli frowned. “Hm?” he said, and then “Oh! Oh, no, dat’s fine, hyu vos right. Hy _vos_ being annoying.”

Sorin blinked, smirked. “Well, yes,” he teased, “but you can’t help your own nature, after all, I shouldn’t be so judgmental.”

“Hoy,” Veli said, and shoved him again. Sorin snickered, let himself bounce back so he and Veli were leaning against each other, shoulders touching. He turned back to watch his now relatively harmless clank explore its new surroundings.

“Sorry for distracting you from your—schedule. Report?” Sorin craned his neck to see the paper Veli was looking at better, but failed.

“Ho, yes,” Veli said, voice shaking with amusement. “Hy sure iz upset about being pulled avay from _dat_. Vat a _hardship_.”

“I can go in the other room and leave you to it,” Sorin threatened, grinning and making no move to get up at all. “I can take my clank and go right now.”

“Nooo but hyu haven’t told me about hyu lesson, yet!” Veli said, turning to pout at point blank range.

Sorin blinked, genuinely surprised. “You actually _want_ to hear about my lesson?” he asked. “I mean… you… it’d probably be boring for you, you won’t really understand half of it and you’re not… really interested in the rest…?”

Veli shrugged -- the other shoulder, not the one that was leaning against Sorin’s, and that made him feel stupidly warm and comfortable and – it was just _nice_ , okay, and Sorin wasn’t above admitting that.

Sorin had been in love with Velimir since probably the first month of knowing him – maybe the first week, possibly the first _day_ , it was hard to tell. It was – well, it would never really go anywhere. Veli was a jaeger, and Sorin was a Heterodyne, and the power imbalance made Sorin phyisically ill when he thought about it too hard. Plus, he’d never really be sure whether Veli was kissing him back because he felt the same or because -- he thought he was supposed to.

He’d gotten used to the idea that he’d probably never get what he wanted in this area of his life years ago, not really. It sucked, but it was by far not the worst thing he had to deal with, and… well, he _did_ get this. This was nice. Veli letting Sorin lean on him when Sorin was tired, leaning back a little.

Quirking a smile at him like he was doing now, warm and friendly and just for Sorin. “Nah,” Veli said, “probably hy von’t, but iz good for hyu to talk about it, jah? Cement it in hyu brain, like. Also, maybe hy ken steer hyu to thinking through some of de _fun_ applications.” He waggled his eyebrows.

Sorin huffed at him and rolled his eyes, elbowed him in the ribs. Predictably, Veli didn’t even move. Jerk. “Fine, but I want you to remember that you asked for this,” Sorin warned, and started to explain.

Five minutes later, he paused in explaining and checked on his audience, who was sitting there very nicely and making lots of neutral interested noises and also eyeing his report maybe a bit more longingly than was entirely appropriate. “Also,” he said, “if you attach a multicolored unicorn to a negative charge, it barfs rainbows that you can mold into leprechaun gold.”

“Hm!” Velimir said, and then “vait, unicorns?” Sorin cracked up.

“I warned you,” he reminded Veli. Veli sighed, huffed at him, didn’t hold the expression for half a minute.

“Yez, yez, hokay, hyu varned me.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Sorin said, rolling his eyes. “It was good and I learned a lot, and I like my clank.”

“De clank iz very cute,” Veli agreed, nodding seriously.

“Shut up, jerk! But… I don’t know, I’m torn, because –“

“Because hyu iz still vorried about de children?” Veli supplied, knowingly.

Sorin sighed, slumped a bit more against Veli’s shoulder. “Yeah.”

“Hmm… hyu tink de Professor did something to dem?”

“Who _else_ could have,” Sorin snapped, glaring, and then the anger trickled out again. He rubbed his eyes, frustrated. “No, that’s not fair, I shouldn’t just assume. There could have been… a plague or something, I don’t know. It’s just…” Sorin chewed on a lip, thinking. “One of the things he was talking about was the, um, the greater applications of clanks as compared to constructs, and the way he was doing it—it sounded like maybe he doesn’t see a difference. Between clanks and constructs, I mean.”

“Dat’s not all dat uncommon,” Veli pointed out. “People not really thinking of constructs as _people_ , hy mean. Doesn’t mean he thinks about _humans_ dat vay.”

“So I’m jumping to conclusions,” Sorin said flatly. “Great.”

“…hy didn’t say dat.”

Sorin sat up, turned to look Velimir in the eye. “Oh?”

“Hm…” Veli looked at Sorin thoughtfully for a minute, and then shrugged. “Hy think,” he said slowly, “dat de good Professor spends a lot of time making people look at things de vay he vants dem to be. Iz suspicious, hy think. It makes me vonder vat he’s trying to distract us from.”

Sorin smiled wryly. “Compensating for something?”

Veli huffed. “Ho, yez. Hy saw dat handshake!”

“I _won_ that handshake,” Sorin assured him, twisting his mouth into something approaching serious. Veli laughed again, reached out and ruffled his hair. Sorin grinned. “Well,” he said, settling back against Veli’s shoulder to watch his clank get tripped up by the carpet and go careening into the wall (it righted itself, buzzing angrily, and went to bounce off the wall again – pff, yeah, good job, that’ll show it). “At least I’m not crazy.”

“Hy didn’t say _dat_ ,” Veli said, and poked him in the side.

“Hey!” Sorin elbowed him in the ribs.

“Iz not _mine_ fault, schmott boy,” Veli said, elbowing back. Sorin punched him in the shoulder. Veli put him in a headlock, dragged him forward nearly into his lap to give Sorin a noogie.

“Ack!” Sorin struggled completely fruitlessly, laughing, as Veli ground his knuckles into his skull. “Noooo, uncle, stop, let go let go—“

Veli released him, laughing too, and Sorin braced himself on Veli’s knee and looked up and—

Veli stopped laughing at about the same time Sorin did, still smiling, but he was looking at Sorin’s lips and—their faces were really close, weren’t they, and Sorin could smell him, feel the warmth from his skin—he was blushing, he could feel it, warm and dizzy, and Veli breathed out and it brushed over Sorin’s lips—

The door to the rooms slammed open, and Sorin jumped, whirled, red as a beet and heart thumping. Veli was on his feet in front of the couch, tense like he was going to lunge—

“Master Sorin!” Oh! Oh, that was Bosko. Bosko was back. Sorin relaxed. Veli did too, tension draining out of him all at once, stepping out of the way as Bosko bounded into the room, trailing Dario with a tray – a half-eaten tray, Sorin couldn’t help but notice – not important, he turned back to Bosko.

“You found a kid?” he asked, standing up. Velimir and Dario’s eyes snapped to him. Bosko nodded.

“Jah, Master,” he said, and thank _God_ , there was a child somewhere in this town, and thank _God_ for Bosko and his excellent timing and his extremely relevant distraction, too, because _wow_ would Sorin have made a _mind-blowingly_ horrible mistake if he’d been even a minute later-- “bot hy dun tink hyu iz gonna like it.”

Sorin’s absolute mess of a love life went out of his head like it had never been there to begin with.

* * *

Sorin and Veli had stopped the second night in a little shack on an island that looked like it had once housed a ferry – well, they’d dug in there, dragged off course by a pack of werewolves who’d tracked them down on their way to intercept a mail dirigible and chased them until they hit the river. It had been a good choice, Sorin remembered, brain working faster than he’d been able to really follow. The currents were fast enough that the werewolves couldn’t cross easily and couldn’t swim to them and even if they managed it, Veli was on firm ground and they were not and it hadn’t really been much of a contest.

Sorin had thrown rocks -- hard enough to wound, to distract, but not hard enough to help, and that had been _infuriating_ , he’d been too angry to _breathe_ , and he’d had his bag and he’d emptied the whole thing on the ground, put a larger rock in it, braced against the wall as he _flung_ the damn thing at the first werewolf’s _head_ , and it had yelped, and something had crunched, and the werewolf had dropped and floated down the river—

Sorin had been sick on the ground next to his tools, mind spinning and the smell of blood in the air and still, still thinking about angles and speed and how hard he’d have to hit steel to make it fold—

Veli had rescued his bag for him and washed it in the river, and had come over and held him all night, not said a damn thing as Sorin shook. Sorin had been pathetically grateful for that, had finally fallen asleep for a few hours and woken to them _surrounded_ again, how dare they he would _burn them to the ground he would DESTROY THEM—_

“I’m breaking through, aren’t I,” he’d asked Veli, dizzy with it, out of control and floating and sharp, like the world could cut him, like he could reach out and use it to slash itself apart.

“Yes,” Velimir had said, quiet and steady and sure, and Sorin had sat down in the middle of the shack and breathed, let that sink in.

“Is that why you stopped kissing me?” he’d asked, not sure why it was suddenly so important he have an answer to that question but needing to know with a burning that _scared_ him a little. “Because you figured it out?”

Velimir had said yes, which had been an out and out lie, but at the time Sorin had accepted the explanation, and when he found out the _real_ reason later that night, he didn’t blame Veli at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work is going to be crazy this evening, and I don't know when I'll be getting out, so I'm posting this a bit early. Enjoy!

The cellar door to the house Bosko brought them to was locked. Stani splintered it in five seconds flat.

Veli winced, flicked his eyes to Sorin without turning away from the door – Stani’d joined their group as they were walking out of the castle, just turned on her heel and fallen into step like she’d planned it, and she was the logical choice for door smashing because she had a mace and the rest of them fought hand-to-hand, but Sorin didn’t really like when they –

Sorin didn’t even _blink_ , just walked forward past her and into the dank room beyond. Wow. Huh. Okay, so gratuitous property damage was acceptable when Sorin was this far into a fugue. Noted. He looked at Dario and Stani and Bosko, who were all looking at him, and shrugged, waved Stani and Dario in after Sorin. Stani shoved her mace into her belt and marched in, smug. Pfff.

Someone needed to stay behind and cover the entrance. The cellar was built under the foundation, one of those that probably had an entrance from inside the house as well as from the road, and that’s probably where someone would come from if they were caught, so this might be their only way out. Mrrgh. Well, Bosko would be better than him at that. Veli clapped him on the shoulder as he passed him, gave a meaningful look at the quiet street around them. Bosko nodded and leaned against the doorjamb, ears already flicking as he stood watch. Great.

The room beyond the door opened up onto a little landing, had a short ladder down into the cellar proper. It smelled dry and musty, like packed dirt and old wood. Veli wrinkled his nose as he entered, nodded at Stani as her eyes snapped to the door, finally found Sorin in the dark as he _swung down onto the ladder ahead of Stani_ , hell, he _knew_ he wasn’t supposed to do that!

Velimir shot forward, dodging around Dario and Stani, who’d both realized Sorin’d gone ahead at the same time and were making aborted movements like they wanted to grab him and weren’t sure they should. Well, Veli had _no_ problem doing it for them; his fingers closed on Sorin’s shirt before his head could disappear below ground level, halting his progress with a jerk. Sorin’s head shot up, glaring at Veli with eyes that practically _shone_ with Spark. Veli grinned back, feigning oblivious, and used the floor to boost himself up and over Sorin, let gravity take him down first. He killed his glow on the way down.

Air rushed up fast – Veli braced, landed quietly on the dirt floor, checked Sorin’s progress down the ladder before looking around. It was – exactly what Veli expected from the outside. A pretty big cellar, dry and earth-smelling, with boxes in the corner and dried herbs hanging from the beams and—huh, either the people who lived here were very messy, or they were trying to make it hard to find something in here. Veli hummed to himself, followed some of the boxes around a corner—there, a little glow, nearly hidden behind a stack of barrels, and Veli could just make out the sound of linens shuffling, like someone was sleeping—somehow _still_ sleeping, despite the door being crushed and four full-sized adults tromping around up above. A small someone.

Looked like they’d found their kid, then. Now they just had to figure out what to do next!

He went back to the ladder as Sorin jumped the final few rungs, put a finger to his lips when Sorin rounded on him like he was going to snarl, nodded at the glow. Sorin’s mouth snapped closed, head shooting that way like a hunting dog on a scent. Heh.

Sorin went around Veli, snuck forward to the barrels – quiet as a mouse in his boots, Sorin could actually could be pretty sneaky when he wanted to be. All that slipping out of his house after curfew and avoiding the Vulkanburg guards to explore the tunnels and the lava labyrinths when he was small, he’d told Veli once. Veli bet that had been cute.

He wouldn’t see anything, though, Veli could already tell. The light wasn’t casting shadows on the boxes, so it must be around another corner. Veli followed him, came up just behind him and peered over the barrels with him – yeah, Veli’d been right, there was another wall of boxes, and a small opening over to the right, big enough to fit a person. Three guesses what was through _there_ …

“Vot’s the plan?” he asked Sorin, quietly, leaning close to speak directly into Sorin’s ear. Sorin twitched, tense, and shrugged. His mouth had that set to it, the one Veli recognized from their mad dash from Vulkanburg – the one that meant Sorin was going to fix something and if it knew what was good for it then it would _stay fixed_.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, equally quiet, turning his head just a little so Veli would be able to hear better. His hair brushed against Veli’s nose with the movement, and Veli got a whiff of – Heterodyne, okay, Heterodyne and machine oil and he was on the job, this was no time to be thinking about... He put it away with the other near misses, firmly pulled his focus back to what Sorin was saying. “But this is an awful place to keep a child. I want to know _why_.”

Fair enough. “Okay,” Veli said. “Dis place iz big, but it’s not so big dere are many places to check. Ve vait for Stani und Dario to get down first, though, yes?”

Sorin huffed, gave him a withering look from under his curls. “It’s a _child_ ,” he whispered. “If I can’t handle myself against a child without three jaegers as backup, I think we have bigger problems!”

Veli bit down on a laugh, shook his head. “Ve don’t know vhy dey iz hiding de children, kiddo, just… humor us.”

“What’s it going to do, _spit fire_?” Sorin scoffed, and then blinked, suddenly looking intrigued. “Oh, hey, that could—“

“Shh!” Veli said, not laughing through what was a truly heroic effort. Sorin settled, looking vaguely apologetic. Veli gave in and snickered. Damn, but he was cute…

…and Veli was _on the job_. He turned away.

There was a sound of someone sliding down the ladder, and a thump of boots hitting earth, and then Dario slid out of the dark, parking himself quietly on Sorin’s other side and peering over the barrels, too. He turned to look at Veli, eyebrows raised. Veli shook his head and nodded at Sorin. Dario settled with a huff.

Stani caught up a minute later, waved to them before slipping off around the barrels to scout ahead. A little after that, there was a quiet shift from leather on earth to leather on wood and cloth – huh. No way around there, then. Veli waited until he heard her boots touch down, heard her call a quiet “clear” before tapping Sorin on the shoulder and nodding at the opening. Sorin nodded back, clambered over the barrels and made for the opening. Stani caught up as he was just entering, slid in after him with a nod to Veli. Veli and Dario hoisted themselves over the barrels and followed them in.

Then a little girl screamed, and Veli was through the opening before he even registered starting to run.

A little girl in the corner, wrapped up in blankets and holding a lantern – Sorin in the other corner, hands up, wouldn’t work the kid had already screamed – footsteps coming from upstairs --  a rifle cocking – Veli leapt the remaining distance and tackled Sorin just as someone shot a rifle _through the ceiling_ , laid on top of him.

“Don’t you touch my daughter,” a man howled, and then more footsteps and Dario was on the other side of the room and picking up the kid – good, secure a hostage – and then a woman rounded some boxes on the other side—

Stani elbowed her in the throat, shoved her back into her – probably her husband, who shouted and pulled his rifle up so the shot went wide – swung her mace and sent the gun careening off into the barrels. Next second, she had the man on the ground, boot on his chest, and the chain from her mace around the woman’s throat, pressing her against the barrels—

“ _Stop_ ,” Sorin snapped, voice full of enough fire and command and Spark that even the man and woman froze at the order, even the little girl stopped crying. “Move, Velimir.” Veli moved.

Sorin stood.

He stared at the man and woman for a minute, eyes sharp and bright and cold in the dark, jaw set the way it had been since they got here – like those two were going to give him what he wanted, or they were going to get run over. He took out a wrench – Veli hadn’t even known he was _carrying_ a wrench – well of course he was, he – he took two steps towards their captives, steady and deliberate, and stopped.

“Bring them here,” he said, voice _ringing_ with Spark harmonics – with _Heterodyne_ harmonics, god. Stani grabbed the sobbing woman by the scruff of her neck, bent down and picked the man up the same, dumped them at Sorin’s feet. Sorin squatted down so he was bent over them, wrench tapping absently at his thigh. “What you just did was stupid,” he informed them, hard and sharp. “You could have hit the girl. Do not do that again.”

The man _cowered_ , curled so he was shielding his wife a little, sobbing now too. “Please,” he moaned. “Please, my _daughter_ —I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t hurt her, _please_ —“

“ _I’m_ going to hurt her?” Sorin started. “What—“ Veli could almost see Sorin realize what he was doing, realize that he was scaring them, drop it almost like a cloak. He looked—startled, maybe, a bit hurt—awgh, no. Sorin looked around, at Stani and then at Veli and then at Dario—his mouth quirked wryly when he saw Dario was holding the girl, one hand firmly over her mouth.

“Let’s… maybe all take a step back,” Sorin said slowly, eyes not leaving the little girl. “Dario, put her down, please.”

They’d lose their leverage there if – Veli sighed. Sorin didn’t want to use the girl as leverage, of course. Well, the adults were pretty well subdued at this point. If they had any other weapons – actually, someone should check them for – Dario glanced at Veli, mouth turned down at the corners, and Veli shrugged, nodded. Dario sighed and put the girl down, carefully. He _didn’t_ take his hand off her shoulder, which would have to do. “There,” Sorin said, turning back to the man and the woman. “Nobody’s going to hurt your daughter more than she’s already been hurt, see? Now, _what is going on here_?”

“Like you don’t know,” the woman moaned, tearful and angry in her despair. “You tracked her here, you tracked her—“

“Oh for Heaven’s—“ Sorin started, slapping his forehead in frustration.

Hysterical, Veli thought wryly. It was always _messy_ to get information from a hysterical person. They could relocate, maybe, and get them to talk when they’d calmed down... no, someone would notice. Now or never, then. He checked in with Stani—she nodded to him, shifted her stance so if they lunged they’d go right up into her before getting to Sorin. Not that they looked like they’d be in any shape to, honestly. Urgh. He sighed and walked quietly over to Dario and the little girl. She was crying, too, but quietly now, like she’d passed through scared and hit calm. Veli only gave her a passing glance before reaching Dario, punched him in the shoulder.

Dario gave him a quick side-look before turning back to the drama before them, mouth quirked. “Hoy dere, Cap’n Meat Shield,” he said, quiet-like under his breath.

Veli punched him again. “Getting slow,” he muttered back. Dario snorted.

“ _No_ ,” cried the man, and Veli’s eyes snapped back to Sorin and the captives. The man had twisted out from under Stani’s grip somehow and wrapped himself around his wife, like he thought Sorin was going to reach out and strangle her right there, “we’re _sorry_ , don’t hurt—“

“ _Shut up_ ,” Sorin roared. The man shut up. The woman continued crying. Sorin deflated all at once, rubbed his temples like he was developing a headache.

Then he stood up and turned towards Veli and Dario and the little girl, looking thoughtful. Veli blinked at him, looked at the girl too. Was Sorin going to try to use her after all? That… huh. That was surprising, actually, Sorin wasn’t usually—Sorin was humming to himself, tapping the wrench against his thigh as he thought. He looked up at Veli, raised an eyebrow at him.

Veli had no idea what Sorin was thinking.

Sorin apparently didn’t see what he was looking for in Veli’s face, or maybe he did, because he shrugged and came over, leaving the adults in their heap.

“Hey there,” he said to the little girl, kneeling down and smiling at her. “I’m Sorin. Sorry I scared you before, I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t even trying to wake you up! What’s your name?”

The little girl stared at him. Sorin sighed, eyes flicking to Veli and Dario behind her again. Veli shrugged, grimaced a little. The last time Veli’d dealt with a kid, it had been Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, and Veli didn’t think the experience really applied. Sorin bit the corner of his own lip, thoughtful, and turned back to the little girl. Then he shrugged and sat all the way down in front of her, on his butt in the dirt. He bent his knees and draped his arms casually on top of them, still holding the wrench.

“Not going to tell me?” he asked, cocking his head. “That’s okay, this was probably pretty scary, right? Those two over there seem to think so, anyway. Are they your parents?” The little girl studied him for a minute, then nodded, shortly, reached up to wipe at the wetness on her face. Sorin smiled. “I thought so,” he said, nodding. “You look a little like your mom!”

“…Don’t,” the girl muttered, pouting a little. “Look like Father.”

“Naw,” Sorin said. Then he pursed his lips and tilted his head. “Hmm, well maybe a bit. You have his ears a little.”

“And his hair,” the girl informed him.

“Oh?” Sorin asked, eyes going wide, and then glancing pointedly at the very bald man still sitting on the floor. Veli pursed his lips to keep from laughing. Next to him, Dario snorted. Sorin’s eyes flicked to them again quickly, amused, before he gave his full attention back to the girl. “How can you tell? You’ve got lots more than him!”

“Pictures,” said the little girl, tugging on her own hair and smiling a little. Sorin smiled back.

“It’s very nice hair,” he informed her. “Nicer than mine! It looks like I glued a sheep to my head.”

“I like sheep,” the girl informed him, very seriously. Veli and Dario looked at each other and then heroically fought very hard to not die laughing.

“Me too,” Sorin agreed, completely ignoring them in that way where Veli could tell he was ignoring them on purpose, “but I don’t want one on my _head_ , you know?” He wrinkled his nose. The little girl smiled a little bit more and baa’d. “Oh, mean! You’re a pest, aren’t you? I can tell. You should meet my sister.”

The smile disappeared. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” the little girl said, seriously. She eyed her parents behind Sorin, who’d gone quiet, watching the whole scene with unreadable expressions.

The woman was still crying. Sorin frowned, and turned back to the little girl. “That’s good advice,” he told her. “You never know what strangers are thinking! Your parents told you that?” The little girl nodded. “Did they also tell you that you had to stay down here?”

The girl hesitated, as though sensing some sort of trap, and nodded again. Sorin’s shoulders tensed, jaw tightening just a little, before he forced himself to relax with visible effort. “How come, do you know?”

“Because the bad man that ate Professor Blecher will take me away,” the little girl told him, perfectly seriously.

Sorin took this information gravely, only blinking a very little bit. Veli was proud. Also he was very, very confused.

“The bad man that ate Professor Blecher?” Sorin asked. Behind him, the man put his head down on the ground, all the fight going out of him at once.

“Mother and Father say nobody ate Professor Blecher, but I think that must be it,” said the little girl. “The bad man _looks_ like Professor Blecher, but he’s not. Professor Blecher was nice! He made toys for everyone.”

“I see,” Sorin said. “Yeah, it’s hard to believe that Professor Blecher would suddenly become bad, isn’t it?” The little girl nodded, completely vindicated. “What would the bad man do if he caught you?” Sorin asked next, very carefully.

The little girl frowned. “Take me away,” she told him. “Like he did to Octavian and Leni.”

“Are those your friends?” Sorin asked.

“Leni’s my twin sister,” the little girl told him, and Sorin—

Sorin stood up abruptly, turned on his heel and marched over to the adults on the floor. “Move,” he snapped at Stani, and grabbed the man by the shoulders and hoisted him to his feet so he could snarl directly into the man’s face. Veli started forward—nobody had checked them for weapons!—then forced himself to stop. Sorin stood with his feet shoulder width apart and anger rolling off him in waves; the man was staring back at him, completely transfixed, eyes wide and whole body shaking from terror. He wouldn’t attack now, Veli’d seen that look before. Far too many times to count.

“Where does he take the children,” Sorin growled. The man didn’t say anything, still staring at Sorin like he was a demon from Hell, like he was a monster, a thing made of nightmare. Sorin shook him some more. “ _Where_?”

“Who _are_ you?” asked the woman from the floor. Sorin rounded on her, glared down, and for a moment Veli thought maybe _Sorin_ would breathe fire, thought he’d lash out. “Are you a questor? Did the Baron send you? Who are you?”

Sorin stared at her silently, for a second, two, too long, and then let go of her husband. The man fell to his knees in a heap. “No,” Sorin said, and smiled, and for a moment Veli could see Saturnus Heterodyne in him --  the cut of his jaw, the way his eyes were set, maybe. The Spark he wore like a cloak. “Definitely not.” The _I am much, much worse_ hung in the air, shivering and unspoken. The woman nodded.

“I’ll take you there,” she said, looking Sorin directly in the eye. Sorin nodded, went to her and held out a hand, helped her up.

“Yes,” he agreed, “you most certainly will.”

* * *

The woman, whose name turned out to be Iulia, led them back out through the house and around to the street on the other side. They took the main roads, quiet but in plain sight. Iulia said that was the way in Blecherville – if you were up to something suspicious, best to do it where everyone could see, or you’d end up with the wrong kind of attention. Sorin shot a glance back at Veli, who raised an eyebrow back, amused, before looking away to scan the street again.

Bosko caught up about three blocks later, dropping down from a roof and landing next to Veli, nearly giving Iulia a heart attack. “It’s alright,” Sorin told her, as Iulia clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle an instinctive shout, eyes wide. “Keep going.”

There was a muttered conversation between the jaegers for the next two blocks, but Sorin couldn’t really make it out, so he stopped trying.

Iulia brought them around another corner and into a big, well-swept alley. There at the end, well-lit with clean, utilitarian lines, huge steel factory doors, and a gleaming brass sign was a building that proudly proclaimed itself to be Laboratory 6. “This is the big lab?” Sorin guessed, eying it.

Iulia’s eyes shot to him, wary. “Colloquially,” she agreed.

“There aren’t any guards on it,” Sorin noted aloud, and walked up to the doors to get a closer look.

“Who would want to go in?” Iulia asked, wry and tired. “I mean, after the Professor finishes, there isn’t…” She sighed, apparently unwilling to continue. Sorin thought about pushing her, but… well, he’d find out soon enough anyway, wouldn’t he?

Besides, he didn’t think that was why there weren’t any guards. Blecher didn’t like humans, didn’t trust them to work properly. His guards wouldn’t be people—there. “Someone give me a boost,” he said, pulling out a screwdriver to go with his wrench. “There’s an alarm.”

Looked easy enough to deactivate—it was wired through the gap and into the door hinge, so if it opened without first being turned off a lever would be pulled and a bell would start ringing. Sorin could see where the lever attached on the outside—he should be able to remove that without setting it off. It looked like there were steel bars along the hinges, too, meant to fall into place as soon as the door closed and brace them that way. Nice design, very simple. Sorin hated it when Sparks added twenty flourishes and a death ray to do what they could do with a little elbow grease and some applied physics. Hrm, probably those wires off the side went to a radio transmitter—there it was, and thank you Herr Langer—

Two sets of hands closed on his legs, and he braced absently as the alarm suddenly drew much closer. He unscrewed the lever, carefully lifting out the brass fastenings and pocketing them—never know. Okay, now which of these wires was likely meant to notify Blecher of an unauthorized entry…that one. Okay. He shoved the screwdriver back into his pocket, pulled out a pair of pliers and cut the wire. No bell sounded, so probably he’d been right. He pocketed the pliers again and reached down to pat the jaeger on his right on the hat. “Down,” he said, giving the area one last check as he was lowered.

Back on solid ground, he slid around Stani and walked over to the door, gripping the handle. “Right, let’s go in,” he said, and pushed.

And, because nothing could be easy, an alarm started to sound. “Shit,” Sorin said, rounding to look up at the alarm—no, it wasn’t that one, and nothing else was attached to the outside—where—ack, one of the jaegers had picked him up, and they were moving into the room and the door was—“Hold the door!” he snapped, too late. The door slammed closed with a _bang_ , and there was a _click_ as the steel bars slotted into place. “ _Argh_ ,” he shouted, and wriggled to be placed on his feet. Who was—“Put me down, Bosko! Damn it. Don’t bother, Stani, they’re sealed from the outside.” He sighed, walked past Veli and up to the door, and—there, yes, there was another alarm. Great.

“...Okay, we’re going to need to break the doors down when we want to leave,” Sorin said, turning to take in the jaegers—Dario had grabbed Iulia, too, so there went the idea of her maybe being able to loosen the hinges from outside—and then turning to take in the rest of the room. “About how long do we need?”

“…Two minutes,” Veli said, looking speculatively behind Sorin, presumably at the doors. Sorin nodded and walked past their group and further into the room.

“Alright, and we’re about ten minutes away from the castle. That means we have five minutes to do what we came for.” The room was lined by old clanks, some plugged into generators, some just sitting deactivated against the wall. No kids, and no workbench in here, either, so where—hrm, well there was a door at the other end. Maybe through there. “Iulia, where does he keep the chidren,” Sorin asked, even as he strode across the room and towards the door. Probably should check there first, maybe there was another exit or something—

“They’re here,” Iulia said, and there was a note in her voice that made Sorin stop.

Here? But where—

Sorin looked at the clanks again, suddenly feeling cold. Every last one of them looked back.

Veli was at his shoulder in the next second, looking around alertly at all the metal faces turned towards them—they didn’t have features, they had—there were slits in the heads that could be eyes, and a small hole where a mouth would be, and they weren’t moving otherwise, just staring—what—

“Oh,” Sorin said, a little belatedly. “Hi, kids.”

A clank in the corner waved. The one next to it reached up without looking and pulled the first’s hand down.

Sorin was going to be sick.

“Are they—it’s body armor?” he asked faintly, as Stani swung around to stand in front of him and Dario and Bosko brought up the rear, Dario still holding Iulia—he set her down next to Sorin, and Sorin turned to look at her.

Iulia looked back, shook her head, shoulders slumped, circles under her eyes so dark they looked sunken, carved into her skull like she was made out of wood. “No,” she said hollowly. “They’re clanks. He wired the—he wired them in. They’re the clanks’ brains.”

Oh god.

Sorin closed his eyes, took a deep breath in through his nose. He could not be sick here, he needed to focus. He took another deep breath, let it out in a hum, let the rest of the world be blocked out. Don’t panic, he told himself. Think.

The brains. That meant they were attached via the nervous system. Sorin didn’t know enough about that to do anything, he needed—

“Where are the notes?” he asked, opening his eyes.

“I don’t know!” Iulia said, “I’ve never been in here before—“

Sorin was already striding away. “I wasn’t talking to you,” he interrupted.

The jaegers had dispersed the moment he’d asked for notes, checking every corner, every one of the children’s clanks. None of the children had responded, so either they didn’t know or didn’t want to tell him. Oh well. He hit the door at the far end of the room, giving it a cursory look before he opened it—no alarm, not that it would matter at this point.

Beyond the door was a platform, and a flight of stairs going up and down. At least two more levels, then, maybe more. There was another door on this level, with a window—Sorin looked in, but it was another room like the one he’d just left—clanks all along the walls, no workbench, no obvious place to keep notes or tools—okay, so Blecher must use another floor, or carry his tools with him and use the large space in the middle of the room. That actually was more likely, honestly, Sorin didn’t see how the children could use the stairs… oh, hey, actually, that was a pulley system. Looked like he’d made the platforms into an elevator or sorts. Interesting, how did he deal with the weight issue—No, focus. There wasn’t an office on this floor. He turned around and walked back inside, closing the door firmly behind him.

All the clanks turned their heads as one to look at him again. He froze, uneasy, and then forced himself to look away to find the jaegers. They were all watching at Sorin, too. He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Any luck?”

“No, Master,” Dario said, as everyone returned to what they were looking at. “Not effen vun piece ov paper.”

“Damn,” Sorin muttered. “Well, there are stairs to a floor above and a floor below.” He walked back into the room, and over to Bosko, who was carefully having one of the clanks bend over so he could see what was behind it. The answer was ‘nothing’. “It’s possible he’s got an office or desk on another floor, maybe, or at least a work room. The platforms move, so he must have _some_ reason to move them up or down—“

“Oh, it’s just to get the clanks on the other floors to ground level,” Blecher said from the door behind Sorin. “I don’t have an office here, and I keep all these notes in the castle.”

Iulia screamed and darted behind one of the clanks. Sorin whirled around, catching sight of the Professor leaning in the doorway, propped casually against the doorframe and looking only mildly interested in proceedings, and then Bosko had grabbed Sorin and shunted him behind and away from the wall—away from the _clank_ —and then he was surrounded again, blocked in on all sides, Bosko’s hand still holding Sorin’s shoulder in case he needed to pick Sorin up to run. Sorin realized he’d caught his breath, let it out in a gasp, locked eyes with the Professor over Veli’s shoulder.

The Professor gave him a distant, wry smile. “I didn’t say anything earlier when I walked in to you already working,” he began mildly, “but you could really do to learn some respect for another Spark’s workplace, boy.” Sorin grit his teeth, said nothing. The Professor shrugged, reached into his pocket and fiddled with something—the alarm switched off, leaving only ringing silence--pushed off the wall and walked into the room, letting the door bang shut behind him. “No matter. You’ve found your way here, and seem interested in my work! Why don’t I explain it to you, then?”

Sorin stared as the Professor advanced, never losing that pleasant, calm little smile. He couldn’t—what was he thinking? What was he _doing_? He had to know that outsiders would react badly to this, but he hadn’t—he’d hid this from Sorin, from _everyone_ , but he wasn’t reacting like he’d been caught at something, he was so _calm_ about it—

It could be that he was Sparking—Sorin had met enough Sparks on Castle Wulfenbach to know the type, the ones who let themselves fall so deep into the logic of their own impossible thoughts that the implications of their actions just washed away—but Sorin couldn’t _tell_. There was—there was an undertone, a bit of something shining in his eyes, but nothing about him was pulling at Sorin, dragging at his brain until he was seeing things sharp and cold and clear. This didn’t feel like the madness place, this felt like a _trap_.

Just how crazy was he?

Blecher took another step, and Veli _growled_ , a low, threatening sound that rattled in Sorin’s bones, made something primal in him want to get up and run. Blecher didn’t even flinch, just stopped walking, held his hands up in surrender. His smile widened, and he spread his arms to indicate the room. “This, my boy,” he said to Sorin, eyes never leaving Sorin’s face, “is my life’s work.

“When I was about your age,” he began, arms dropping to his sides, voice rising and falling in measured, steady waves, like this was a speech he’d rehearsed, “My family home caught fire. My family got out, of course, but we lost everything—the fire fighters couldn’t put out the blaze, you see. Even worse, one of them went into the house after something—oh, I can’t even recall what, now. Old age is never kind,” he told Sorin, crossing his arms and sighing. “Regardless, he died when the house collapsed.

“It taught me a valuable lesson, that fire. It taught me that _humans were not made to be heroes_.” Blecher smiled, and there—there was the madness Sorin had been looking for. He held his tongue. The Professor continued. “But we need heroes, of course, weak and breakable as we are, so I went looking for another option. And I found it, of course, in machines.

“I broke through not too long after that, and began my work—to build a clank that could go into the places a human could never hope to survive, the worst conditions the world had to offer, and do the work necessary for humans to enter, to take over, to _thrive_. It was slow, plodding work, and I failed over and over again. For a long time, I thought that perhaps I would not live to see my work completed!

“But then a miracle happened,” Blecher said, dreamily. “The Other attacked, and turned half the world into dark, dangerous, inhabitable ruin.”

Sorin was burning alive, he was sure of it. He stood there, trapped in his little circle of jaegers, and listened to this man hold forth on the benefit the deaths of _millions of people_ had afforded his research. He wanted to collapse the room on this man, he wanted to strangle him with his bare hands, he—

He had the bare minimum of tools—just what had fit in his pockets on the way out the door—and four jaegers, but nothing—no materials, no means to make them—only the clanks, staring at them  all, unmoving and terribly, terribly silent—

“The Baron came to me not long after he established his Empire. He told me he would fund my research if I could make clanks that would be able to right the wrong that had been done to those towns. I accepted, of course, and with that money I not only progressed leaps and bounds, but I fortified my _own_ town, made my people prosperous and happy and, above all, _safe_.

“Unfortunately,” Blecher said, beginning to frown to himself as he continued, “progress marches on, and even with the funds afforded to me I could not make an entirely mechanical clank that could not only enter these areas, but have the know-how and ingenuity to fix it. That, it seems, is still the purview of humans alone.”

\--There was the door behind Blecher, but he’d said that he didn’t have any storage here—that could have been a lie, Sorin didn’t trust a _word_ coming out of this monster’s mouth, but they needed time to search, and he Professor was still so calm, so sure, like he wasn’t concerned, like Sorin didn’t pose a _threat_ —

“My funds began to dry up. Other Sparks were slowly beginning to repair their own lands, without any need for me to assist. The Baron began to lose interest, and my research plateaued. I knew I needed something—something to make my clanks _smarter_ , and I needed it quickly.”

“You used children,” Sorin said, voice somehow level, flat, calm, when what he wanted to do was _scream_ , throw something, _melt the ground under the Professor’s feet_ —

The Professor grinned, wide and approving. “Oh, yes,” he said, thrumming with pride. “Young enough to adapt to a drastic change, innovative enough to find and solve the problems, I needed solved, and still adapting, as it were, able to take the protocols I built into their new bodies and _learn_ from them, adopt them, without chafing at the loss of free will. Children, my boy, are the _future_.”

Iulia was crying behind Sorin, quietly. Sorin could hear her crying, remembered her face in the cellar, remembered her little girl saying “Leni is my twin sister”—

\--Protocols to eliminate free will. There was the trap—Sorin _knew_ there was a trap. He could send every single one of these clanks at them at once, probably with just a word, they were surrounded, and he only had four jaegers and Iulia behind him and nothing, _nothing_ he could work with—

“It took me some time to come up with the current model, mind, and there are still bugs to work out.” Blecher turned, looked the closest clank up and down, while Sorin grit his teeth and listened, powerless and ready to scream from it. “I attempted, at first, to use only the nervous system, but the tissue decayed to quickly. I began to keep the nerves encased in flesh, and merely attempted to replace the limbs and necessary organs with mechanical versions, in order to allow for greater ability to function in otherwise inhabitable environments. That worked to a certain extent, but I have not yet found a good replacement for the digestive system, and it soon became rather obvious that attempting to replace the skeletal system _entirely_ was a waste of everyone’s time. I hope to make those corrections in future, but for now we are simply attempting to find an efficient means of recycling waste in order to cut back on the nutrients necessary to allow the clanks to function.

“Other than that, there is merely the difficulty that the skeletal systems are not complete. After a time, they get too large for the containment, and collapse in on the organs, requiring either a replacement or unreasonably burdensome adaptations to the clank itself to compensate. Additionally, the clanks still often require a few repetitions of the radio frequency before the protocol takes effect, although that was easy enough to solve by putting the radio transmission on a loop… I have high hopes, now, that once the biological aspects are fully replaced, and with a suitably far-reaching radio frequency, we will finally have our ‘heroes’.

“So now you know what I have been up to,” Blecher said, rounding on Sorin again, eyes alight. “The question becomes, what are you going to do with it?”

Sorin had been completely out-maneuvered. He needed materials, he needed more back-up, he needed Iulia to not be caught in the cross-fire, he needed _time_ —

\--He needed to buy time.

He’d been skirting the edges of the madness place since the cellar—enough to ride, to shape things a little, not enough to lose focus on what he was here to do. That part, the mad part, had been listening to Blecher, was shivering with interest, with _anticipation_ , _racing_ with ideas that Sorin could reach out and touch—

\--He needed to buy time. He breathed, and let himself sink.

“…What about compression?”

Blecher stilled, blinked at him, caught off guard. “I beg your pardon?”

“ _Compression_ ,” Sorin said, and—and _oh_ , yes, _yes_ this would work. “I read in a book once, that the Chinese—they like their Empresses to have small feet, so they start when they’re small, they—they wrap their feet to halt the growth. It gives a little, not like metal, so there’s room for expansion—the bones don’t break as easily. And over time, the bones just… curl in on themselves, double over and over, and they… stay small.” He looked Blecher in the eye, let the idea carry him away. “You build the clanks too small, Professor. You should build them… two, three sizes larger, and compress the skeleton with something with more give. It would take… oh, years, and you would need to keep checking in, of course, and allowances would have to be made for various irreplaceable organs growing, but…”

“But the clanks would survive the aging process,” Blecher said, and in his voice was a note of triumph. Sorin smiled back. “Yes, _yes_ , I had a feeling about you, boy, I could tell from when I first saw you—you’re a bright one, the Baron is absolutely right about you—oh.” Blecher looked grave, now, serious. “That reminds me. You understand, of course, why the Baron—“

“Oh, the _Baron_ ,” Sorin interrupted, filling in what Blecher wanted to hear—what _he_ would want to hear, right now. “He can get kind of fussy about things like this, I guess. And there’s no finished product yet, so he might be—distracted, by the—“ The children—no, not _now_ —“the necessary sacrifices to get even to this point. It’d be better to show him later, when the clank is successful—“

“Precisely,” Blecher said, and smiled. “Excellent, we’ll make a mechanical Spark of you yet, boy. Now, there is only the one final matter…”

What _now_ —what could possibly—Blecher wasn’t looking at him. For the first time since he’d walked in, his focus was not on Sorin. He was smiling again, that mild, calm little smile, and he was looking—

\--he was looking at Veli.

What Blecher was getting at clicked in Sorin’s brain all at once. The jaegers. The jaegers that the _Baron had sent_ , that had been insinuated to Blecher as being there to keep Sorin under control, under the Baron’s thumb—

\--Blecher wouldn’t let the jaegers leave here alive.

 _No_ , Sorin thought. Just that. One word, thundering through the madness and the fear and the stomach-turning revulsion and taking root in the back of his brain, near his spine. He could feel it in his fingertips. No. Blecher could not have them. They were Sorin’s. No.

“Hm?” Sorin said, stalling for time. This would be trickier. He couldn’t tell the Professor that the jaegers were really loyal to _Sorin_. That would blow his cover clean open, and they’d be back to Sorin being too dangerous to live.

Sorin could go the other way, maybe. Jaegers looked after their own, maybe if he pointed out that there were seven missing, that they’d notice if their friends suddenly disappeared—and start a manhunt for the others. No, wouldn’t work.

…If Blecher saw them as threats, he must at least ackmowledge they were autonomous beings, right? Even if he did think they were stupid enough not to notice he was insinuating that he needed to kill them right in front of them. He’d been willing to see what Sorin would do. Maybe—

No time, he needed to go with it. “… _oh_ ,” Sorin said, like he’d just figured out what Blecher might see as a problem. “The _jaegers_? Oh, no, you don’t have to worry about them.” There was… a ripple, that went through the jaegers then. No other way to describe it. They didn’t catch their breaths, or say anything, or move, just—a start, acknowledged, joining the party. Bosko squeezed Sorin’s shoulder, _we’re with you, what do you need_ , and Sorin had to resist the urge to respond. _Trust me_ , the thought, hard as he could.

Blecher’s eyebrows raised, eyes wide and surprised. Sorin had thrown him, _ha_. “I don’t, do I?” he asked, slowly.

“No,” Sorin said. “They’re not loyal to the Baron the way some of his other constructs are, they’re… employees, I guess. That means they’re as bribable as anyone else. You just have to know what they _want_ , Professor.”

“Huh,” the Professor said, looking from Sorin back to Veli again, and then back to Sorin. “And you know that.”

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Sorin asked, raising an eyebrow back. “They’re _jaegermonsters_ , Professor. They want to _fight_.”

“Oh, _yez_ ,” Dario said to Sorin’s side, and Sorin could _hear_ the grin even without looking at him. He tamped down hard on the urge to roll his eyes, forced his face into something vaguely chastising instead.

“Shh,” he said, turning his head and directing the look at Dario. He wilted, visibly, shuffled his feet like a naughty little boy. Sorin turned back to Blecher, determinedly.

“See what I mean,” he said, keeping his voice light, wry. “Offer them a good fight in exchange for keeping their mouths shut. Problem solved.”

“Hmm…” Blecher was definitely looking at the jaegers now, speculative. “The problem is, I’m not sure what fight I could offer them. I’m not interested in doing any conquering of my own, you see.”

…Crap. Of all the Sparks to be unambitious—Sorin cast about, come on, there had to be something—Oh!

“But you’re running out of children,” Sorin said. “That’s what tipped me off, the lack of children in the streets. You’ll need more soon, of an age to be _useful_ , and you won’t get them here.”

“…There is that,” Blecher said, and turned to look at the clank he’d been studying before again, pursing his lips in thought. Sorin looked, too, forced the knowledge that it was a _child_ out of his head—he’d save the children, but first he needed to save the rest of them, he needed to think, what else, there was—

\--there was something else. Sorin nearly threw himself right out of the madness place in horror. No, he couldn’t even—he—

\--Blecher wasn’t buying the kidnapping kids. Sorin needed something _more_.

“Or you could use the jaegers themselves,” he said, feeling far away, like he could separate himself from what was coming out of his mouth, like the Spark was talking and he was only along for the ride. “The healing factor _alone_ would solve your difficulties with fully modifying, and regardless they’re all full grown men and women, they’re hardly going to grow _more_ … Hell, if you sold it as giving them greater endurance or fire power, some might even _volunteer_ , and they’ll all thank—“ Sorin choked on the _you_ , because no, they wouldn’t, this would never happen because the only person they’d accept doing this was _Sorin_ , and Sorin could _never_ —

“They’d be perfect,” Sorin finished, lamely. Behind him, Iulia gasped in horror. Sorin’s stomach rolled.

He couldn’t look at them, he couldn’t. He had no idea what they were thinking, what they thought, they had to know he wouldn’t ever really offer them up—he could see the ways it would work and how to improve and what to change and he would _never_ —

In front of him, Veli shifted, one foot to the next. “Huh,” he said, and Sorin knew exactly what frown he was making, the way his forehead was probably scrunched up, like he was hard at work thinking though something, like it took effort to do. “So… der whole clenk vould be de prosthe—der fake leg ting?” Behind Sorin, Bosko squeezed his shoulder again, _we’re with you_.

“Ho, like Kazimir,” he said, fake cheerful. “Ja, he kicks real hard now, iz _unfair_!”

Sorin was going to cry in relief—no, later. He looked past Veli again, as Stani and Dario joined in, cheerfully agreeing that Kazimir had an unfair advantage and did you hear about Dragos and Stani had always _wanted_ elbow spikes, could she get—

There, finally, was what Sorin had been looking for. Blecher’s eyes were wide, alight with fire, like he could see the possibilities laid out before him. “I see what you mean, my boy,” he murmured, watching the jaegers clown for his benefit. “Yes, I believe you may be right.”

“Meester Sorin,” Dario interrupted, “ken hy haff verra long legs so hy ken kick Milosh in de head?”

Sorin rolled his eyes for Blecher’s benefit, turned so he could see Dario. “Yes, yes,” he said, soothing. “You’ll get an entire clank all for you. Professor,” he said, turning back, “can I take them to get the others? I’d really rather only have to explain this once.”

“Ve’d be in de clank?” Stani asked, pursing her lips at the clanks dubiously.

“You would _be_ the clank,” Sorin explained, sighing.

Blecher laughed. “Yes, I can see that explaining might take a while. Well, better you than me, my boy. I think I’d lose patience with them all!”

“Mm,” Sorin said, agreeing, giving them all a wry look. “You don’t mind if I take them off for a bit, then?”

“Not at all, not at all,” Blecher said, and reached into his pocket to pull out a… a little switch, which he flipped. There was a grating sound near the big doors—probably the seals releasing. He started walking off towards the doors himself, hands back in his pocket, nodding towards the door for Sorin to follow. “Let’s off, then. I want to close up in here. You too, Frau Petran, off with you. Sorin, why don't we meet back here in... what time is it? 8:30? Let’s say, 10:30 tonight?”

“That’s a _lot_ earlier than we’d said,” Sorin pointed out, slipping out from between his guards and falling into step with the Professor. The jaegers followed, gathering a silently sobbing Iulia as they went, whispering to each other about the prospect of being a clank loud enough for Blecher and Sorin to hear. Sorin rolled his eyes at Blecher pointedly, and the Professor chuckled.

“Well,” the Professor said, shrugging, “I figure you may as well help with evening maintenance, if you’re to be involved, ey? This way I can show you the connections, and the feeding issues we’ve been working with, and perhaps even the digestive tract I’ve been developing. All you have to do is convince your jaegers in two hours.”

“Heh,” Sorin said, mind racing with ideas in spite of himself. “Absolutely. Alright, I’ll meet you here at ten-thir—“

“Meester Sorin,” Bosko interrupted, with almost a whine. “Hy dunno if hy vant to be stock in a clenk.”

Sorin rounded on him, snarling. “You would _not_ be _stuck in a clank_ ,” he snapped. “You would be… improved! Rebuilt! Perfected! You would--” and Sorin could _see_ it, the connections and the enhancements—nerves conducted electricity, he could refine response times to near nothing, he could program reflexes to act on barely a thought, he could increase speed and stamina and--

“Oh,” Bosko said, eyes wide, and he practically _wilted_ in front of Sorin, like he was half a second away from falling on his _knees_. “Hokay, dot’s goot den.”

Sorin stared at him, eyes wide and mind racing. Blecher clapped him on the shoulder, laughing. “You have your work cut out for you, I think,” he said. “Well, I’ll see you in two hours, my boy.”

“Yes,” Sorin said, and he could taste bile in he back of his throat. “See you.”

And Blecher walked off into the night. Sorin stood very still as he watched him go, waited until he was out of sight, until his footsteps had faded to nothing, a minute longer, two.

He could still see the connections, could see the diagrams in his mind’s eye—he didn’t know much about biology, but he’d _read_ since becoming a Spark, he had a rudimentary grasp of anatomy, he could--

“…hoy, kiddo,” Veli said, coming up in front of him and putting his hands on Sorin’s shoulders. “Hyu okay? Boss?” Sorin stared at him, just long enough for the diagrams in his head to morph, to take on the shape of Veli’s legs, to define the _ligaments_ —

He ripped himself away, turned on his heel and was sick, right there in the street.

A minor commotion went up behind him. He ignored it, busy as he was coughing up all the contents of his stomach. His knees hit the ground as he doubled over, heaving again as he imagined ripping those vocal chords out—the children had been so _quiet_ , oh god, oh hell and damnation.

He heaved one more time, and then braced himself with his hands on the ground, closed his eyes. Breathed in.

He would fix this.

He stood up, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve, and turned to face the others.

“Right,” he said. “Stani, go get the others, tell them to meet us at the foundry on Bishop of Rome Street.”

Stani blinked, then grinned. “Jah, Master,” she said, and took off towards Main Street.

Sorin turned back to the others. “Bosko, take Iulia out of here, then come back and start evacuating the townspeople. Start around this lab. Do _not_ get caught.”

“Gates vill be closed by now,” Veli offered.

“Hmm… okay, just get them out of the way,” Sorin amended. He turned and looked down the street. They’d probably need to go right at the end of the alley… “Veli and Dario, come with me. I’ll need the hands. I only have two hours—“

“What—“ Iulia interrupted, and Sorin paused, turned to look at her.  


“What…” he prompted.

“What are you _doing_ ,” she snapped, eyes red and damp from crying, wild from grief. Sorin stared at her.

“…Isn’t it obvious?” he asked, genuinely confused. “I’m taking the town, of course. What else could I do?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, remember when I set up a tentative schedule for this fic in the comments? That was silly, I have held to it exactly once.

In the end, they _had_ caught the dirigible.

It hadn’t really been planned at that point. Veli’d figured they were too far off course from the werewolves, had been bracing himself for a bit of a mad rush through kilometers of woods with a Heterodyne in breakthrough while pursued by lava-spewing clanks. That was until they’d crested a cliff, though, and realized they’d circled around back into the mail’s flight plan, and the original “get off the ground and into something the Viscountess wouldn’t dare shoot at” plan had suddenly been back in motion.

There had been the minor problem of how to pass a small platoon of spider and lava clanks with someone on his back in order to get up to it, but Sorin solved that problem by not minding being thrown like a cannon ball at a moving object at least 500 meters in the air, so.

Veli had a much easier time bridging the gap with just himself to deal with, and he only got a little singed on the way, so he was up there in record time. Which was good, because he’d hit the deck just as Sorin, armed only with what looked like the broken bannister he’d still been carrying for some reason and a _wrench_ , was ordering the armed guards and keepers of the mail to _kneel_ , and they did. Veli’d had to take a minute and recalibrate his world-view, so the boy who’d run in a panic from the Viscountess in the tunnels and ended up shaky and disoriented in his arms the moment they were clear of the town ordering _guardians of the mail_ to kneel and them actually doing it made sense. By the time he was done, Sorin had spotted him, rage and Sparky command swirling around him like a cloak.

“We are going to Castle Wulfenbach,” he’d told the room at large, and Veli’d had to bite his tongue until it _bled_ to swallow the _yes, Master_ lodged in his throat.

After stealing the dirigible, though, Sorin had seemed to deflate—shaky and distracted, eyes catching on the dirigible controls and the metal fastenings and fingers twitching. One of the guards had given him a sandwich, which he’d eaten like he wasn’t even tasting it, and then he’d taken himself and his bannister pieces and his tools off to a corner with some spare parts—Veli’d really hoped those were _spare_ parts—and started doing something that made the bannister not-splintered anymore, and also possibly retractable—

\--then Sorin had started to hum, to _heterodyne_ , and it had caught Veli in the gut, whirled him around until he was off-balance and wrong-footed and _home_ , and he’d left in the middle of a conversation with the Captain to just—

\--he had no idea when he’d started crying, watching Sorin work and listening to him block the world out while he did it, but he hadn’t care all that much.

Sorin had worked for another… two, three hours until the fugue released him. Veli wasn’t sure, exactly, he hadn’t been paying attention. Sorin had come out blinking, like some sort of baby animal waking up, had taken a second to look around and let the knowledge of where he was and what had happened settle, and then had turned to look at Veli, vaguely confused—until he’d really registered what Veli’s face was doing, anyway, and then Sorin’s face had morphed into a mask of _horror_ , as a few things finally clicked into place.

“No,” he’d said, shoving himself back into the corner and dropping his tools and bannister thing. “No, no you’re wrong, I’m _not_ —I _can’t be_ —“

“Master,” Veli had said, and his voice had broken halfway through the word.

“ _No_ ,” Sorin had said, curling in on himself like someone had knocked the wind out of him, like he was trying to make himself small enough to hide from the weight Veli had just put on his shoulders. “I can’t be—I _don’t want it_. I want to go _home_ , I want to be a _blacksmith_ , I don’t want—please don’t _make me_ —“ And then he’d started to cry, a broken, despairing sound that _ripped_ at Veli’s mind and lungs and heart, and Veli hadn’t been able to _help_ , to do anything to fix it, and he had sat there heartbroken as his brand new Heterodyne denied—rejected— _begged_ Velimir to make it stop—

Veli had spent the night outside the dirigible, holding on grimly as Sorin mourned his entire life. By the time the sun came up Veli’d had a plan.

He’d slipped back into the cabin, past Sorin who’d finally fallen asleep at that point, and gone to have a word with the Captain. Sorin had woken as they were changing course—just a little, just enough for this to work, and the look of absolute _panic_ on his face when he realized that was happening had almost been enough for Veli to scrap the whole thing.

“Good morning,” he’d said instead, squatting down to look Sorin in the eye and trying on a smile. “Just a slight detour to drop me off, don’t vorry.”

Sorin had blinked at him, surprised and confused. “What? Drop you—“

“Dere’s a jaeger outpost about thirty minutes from here,” Veli had explained to him, giving up on the smile and settling on serious. “De Captain is just bringing me a bit closer to dat so hy can get out und handle all de technical bits before she brings hyu on to Castle Wulfenbach. They’ll be expecting hyu vhen hyu arrive, und then hyu just stay dere for—maybe a week, two weeks, und as long as hyu don’t heterodyne any more und stay avay from the jaegers hyu’ll be back vith hyu family before the month is out.”

Sorin wasn’t stupid, he’d figured out what Veli was saying pretty quickly. “But—“ he’d started, eyes wide and—and a little hopeful, and Veli’s heart had broken all over again. He’d covered it with another smile.

“If hyu don’t vant it, den making hyu take it is pointless, yes?” he’d said. “Hy’ll get hyu back to hyu family like hyu vant, and things can go back to normal for hyu.”

And then he would shove a knife between his ribs, but Sorin hadn’t needed to know that part. That part had been Veli’s, and he’d planned to keep it, selfishly. With any luck, he’d thought, Sorin would never find out.

Sorin hadn’t objected any more than that, and the next half an hour had gone in relative silence. Veli had watched Sorin doze, jerking himself awake every few minutes and looking for Veli. He’d finally promised he’d wake Sorin when it was time for him to go just so the kid would get some sleep.

He’d kept his promise, too, even though he’d considered not doing it, and Sorin had walked to the opening with him, holding on to look down at the trees passing underneath them dubiously. “How are you—“

“Hy’ll be fine,” Veli had assured him. “Hy’ll catch some branches on de vay down.”

“Okay,” Sorin had said, and had looked at him weird, thoughfully, maybe, Veli hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. “I guess this is goodbye, then.”

“Jah,” Veli had said, and Sorin had smiled at him, small and tentative, hair all over the place and bruised from all the running and—and fuck it, Veli had been about to give up everything for this boy, and he’d wanted a kiss. So he’d taken one. Quick and close-mouthed and Sorin had started in surprise, hadn’t even had time to react before Veli had pulled away and thrown himself out of the moving dirigible, caught himself on the branches on the way down.

He’d landed and gotten his bearings—twenty meters to the south of the outpost. Just a quick, twenty meter jaunt through the woods to betray his brothers and his Troth in one fell swoop…

…but save Sorin. The Heterodyne. Whichever. He’d grinned, humorlessly, and taken the first step.

And then he’d heard Sorin shout, and his head had whipped up to where the dirigible was, not even a minute from where he’d left it, and Sorin holding onto one of the escape ropes for dear life as a commotion happened just above him, and then Sorin’s grip had slipped, almost in slow motion, and he’d started to fall—

Veli had no idea how he’d gotten back to Sorin in time to catch him, but he had.

“ _What do you think you is doing_ ,” he’d bellowed, winded and sore from he muscles he’d pulled managing that and heart still racing from the adrenaline spike, accent dropped and not caring in the least.

And Sorin had looked Velimir in the eye, his own eyes wide and startled, and then he’d started to laugh—cackle, even, nearly doubled over with mirth. “Oh, _wow_ , I need to work on that,” he’d said, putting his head on Veli’s shoulder for a second to collect himself, and wriggling to be put down. Veli had, now more confused than he’d been since this whole adventure began. Sorin had righted himself, checked his pockets, and then turned to look at Veli, and the look on his face had been—

“So,” Sorin had said, eyes knowing and kind and a little sad, like he’d figured Veli out. “Where’s this outpost, then? You’re going to introduce me, right?”

Veli may have cried again, this time all over Sorin, but he’d go to his grave denying it. Then he had brought their new Heterodyne home.

* * *

The alarm didn’t sound until 10:45, by the big clock Veli could see just over the rooftops.

“Show time,” he called, leaping up onto the roof of the store across the street. There, the lab, ten blocks away—the door _crashed_ open, so loud Veli could hear it from here, and the clanks marched out in rigid, straight lines, three across and faster than Veli had thought they’d be moving. “Three minutes!”

In the foundry, Sorin cursed, pulled the half-finished gun out and slammed it into the bucket nearby—Veli could hear the hissing as the heated metal hit the cold water. “Only eight,” Sorin muttered, sounding worried.

“Fine,” Veli assured him, scanning the street—he flicked his ears up, caught the sound of footfalls through the streets, beating out the steady _clang, clang, clang_ of oncoming enemies, filling the night and Veli’s brain, crawling up his spine in a pounding _move move move_. Veli bared his teeth. “Hand dem out und let’s go!”

“Right, right, okay,” Sorin said, and Veli spared him a glance—what was taking so long—he’d turned to the smith whose forge he’d commandeered, right, he’d been making Sorin ammo--long steel spikes to Sorin’s specifications while Sorin slammed together the actual weapons.

“Got… maybe twenty each,” the smith said, wiping his brow.

“Divy them out,” Sorin ordered, picking up one of the completed guns. The smith scrambled to obey—good—and Sorin stepped into the street, flipped a switch on the top. The gun immediately started to whirr.

“ _Master_!” That was Zbignev. “Vhat—“

“Zbignev, turn the rest of these on and take one for yourself,” Sorin ordered, ignoring them. Something _crashed_ —metal on stone—the lights went out. Dario growled, and Veli clamped down on one of his own.

“Master _Sorin_ ,” Stani bit out. “Ve haff to _go_ —“

“We have two minutes,“ Sorin interrupted. “Andrej, Dario, and Blazh, take a gun. Who else—“ he looked around at the array of jaegers—they’d fanned into the street, tight with battle tension—

 _Clang clang clang_ , _clang_ —footsteps, fast and regular—they were pouring into streets in a standard search formation--“Three streets avay,” Veli snapped.

“Shit, okay,” Sorin said, and ran a hand through his hair. “Chestibor, Milosh, and Veli.” _Finally_. Chestibor and Milosh _lunged_ into the foundry to pick up a weapon. Zbignev jumped up next to Veli, tossed him a gun and a bunch of metal rods. “Lyubo and Stani, you’ll have to use your own weapons, and Bosko and Premisl will have to go without, crap--”

“ _Two_ streets,” Veli warned.

“ _I hear them_ ,” Sorin snapped, snatched his bag of steel bars from the smith, slung it over his shoulder. He pulled out a steel bar, flipped the gun over, and unlatched the metal flap on a heavy spring, pulling hard to create some space. “Watch,” he ordered, and fit the bar in place before the spring clamped down, pushing the steel into the barrel. “This is how you load,” he told them. “As you shoot, the spring should push the rest of the steel into the gun, so when you get low just shove in another one. I need—“ he snarled, rolled his shoulders, tense and agitated. “They’re not _tested_ , I need a clank.”

“Hyu’re about to get five,” Veli snarled.

“Ten,” Bosko corrected, landing next to Veli too. He was holding the bottom half of a metal leg and grinning like a fiend. “Dey’re right behind me, Master, ve haff to move! Now!”

“Perfect,” Sorin said, and turned towards the mouth of the street.

The first clank rounded the corner at a run, silent but for the _clang clang clang_ of metal on stone, the click of grinding gears. Sorin stood, watched as the clank got closer, shoulders back and jaw set, practically _shining_ with Spark.

Fifteen meters, ten, five—“ _Sorin_ ,” Veli shouted, bracing to lunge and knock him out of the way, what was he _doing_ —

“This is how you shoot,” Sorin said, and took aim at one of the knees.

The gun was silent, but the smell of heating metal instantly hit Veli’s nose. He watched, eyes wide, as a stream of molten steel shot out the tip and hit the clank right at the joint, got into the gears and hardened almost immediately. The clank took another step and fell, face-planted right there in the road, knee half melted away and stiff as the steel Sorin hit it with. Its head was maybe ten centimeters from Sorin’s feet. Sorin grinned.

“Whoo!” Zbignev cheered, fangs out and grinning. “ _Hokay_ , now ve iz in _business_!” Veli blinked, closed his mouth. They were _indeed_. He had no idea why he was surprised.

“Go,” Sorin said, as another clank rounded the street corner.

“Jah, Master,” rang through the street, and they moved, hit the first line like a tidal wave, the smell of molten metal filling the air.

They hunted.

* * *

The world was moving faster than Sorin could process it.

Clank to his right—he shot, got the elbow, the clank’s arm locked and it jerked it back by the shoulder—he jumped back, fired again at the hip joint—too close _too close_ —

Premisl came out of nowhere, tackled Sorin out of the way as the clank fell, rolled himself around Sorin—the road spun, and Sorin was back on his feet, Premisl laughing in his ear.

“Whoo!” he shouted. “Hy vant de arm, ken hy have de arm? Hy’m gonna beat dem op vit dey own arms, dot vould be _fonny_ —“

“ _Left_ ,” Sorin shouted, and Premisl jumped sideways, just as another clank’s arm swiped down through the air where they’d just been standing. Premisl let go of Sorin, _lunged_ , caught the arm and shimmied up it—

“Don’t hurt the _kid_ ,” Sorin shouted, shooting at the clank’s knees. Premisl scoffed, ripped the arm out of its socket in a stream of sparks, backflipped off as the clank fell forward—Sorin dodged out of the way again—to land on another clank’s _head_ —“Hallo,” he crooned, and whacked the metal head with the arm. The clank’s knees buckled, and its arms flailed wildly as it hit the ground and keeled over, rocking on its back like a turtle. Premisl slid down and ripped a leg off at the knee while he was at it. “Schtop hitting hyuself,” he sang, in the tone Sorin hadn’t heard anyone use seriously since he was in _short pants_ , and turned back to Sorin, grinning like a fiend.

“How _old_ are you,” Sorin asked, despairing.

“Hy dunno, tree-hundret sumting,” Premisl said, shrugging cheerfully. “Come on, next street!” and then he’d picked Sorin up under his arm and bounded down the street, cackling. Sorin gritted his teeth as gravity tugged him in two, twisted to shoot at a clank in passing, missed. Damn it.

The world whirled again, and Sorin was on a roof, Premisl hauling himself up after him, still carrying the arm. “Hokay,” he said, “dere iz no clenks in de next street, bot ve could head to Main Street und make a dent dere, bot mebbe somevun should cover de gate area—“

“There,” Sorin said, and skidded down the roof—Premisl grabbed his shirt before he could fall, shouting in surprise—and aimed at a clank from behind. His gun sizzled, suddenly, smoke rising from it as the barrel went red-hot. “Ow,” Sorin yelped, somehow managing to fling the gun onto the roof as he dropped it, shaking his hand out. The clank, stiff from the steel coating on the back of its knees, fell forward onto the ground. “Damn it, it’s overheating,” Sorin cursed, as Premisl hauled him back onto the roof proper and then jumped down to recapture Sorin’s gun. “Why—damn it, chamber isn’t insulated enough, I _knew_ I should have-- _argh_!” He grit his teeth, furious with himself. “They’re all going to find themselves holding red-hot metal in the _middle of a battle—Hell’s_ gates.”

“No vorries, Master, ve find somevun to tell dem,” Premisl said, landing next to Sorin and handing him back the gun, bouncing cheerfully on his toes. “Ve go to Main Street und—“

“Or you do it,” Sorin said, new plan snapping into place. He pulled out his work gloves, putting them on with his teeth.

“Vat?” Premisl said, startled, eyes widening. “No, Master, iz a battle, hy ken’t chust leave hyu here—“

“You can,” Sorin said. “And you’re going to. Right now. Here—“ he pulled out another two pairs of gloves—not as good quality as the ones he was wearing, but they’d do in a pinch. “Give those out to someone who’ll fit in them, while you’re at it.”

“Master, _no_ —“

“I’m on the roof,” Sorin interrupted. “I doubt a roof can hold one of those things, I’ll be safe as long as I’m up high. If the guns are going to start malfunctioning the others need to _know,_ Premisl, and I’ll only slow you down.”

“Iz chust a little burning,” Premisl said, like your hands suddenly blistering while you were firing a gun was barely even an issue.

“And they’ll drop it as a clank bears down on them,” Sorin snarled, “or they’ll _hold on to it_ and lose skin in _sheets_. No. I will be fine. _Go_.”

Premisl went. Sorin reloaded.

* * *

Veli lunged past a clank, caught it under its arm with steel as it swiped at where he’d been, kept going as Milosh grabbed the now stiff arm and threw it over his head, putting his shoulder into it. The clank crashed into the ground in a hail of sparks—Veli checked to see if it was still moving before heading to the next one, yes, okay—

“ _Roof_ ,” Milosh bellowed, pulling out his own gun and firing up towards the overhang behind Veli, Veli spun, gun up as the clank tripped over its now stiff foot, pulled half the shingles down as it went—steel plating under there, shit, the roofs were enforced—he grit his teeth, reloaded, fired into the fallen clank’s knee as he swung up to check roof level—

“ _Veli_ ,” came Premisl’s voice, and Veli whipped around, eyes wide, as Premisl crested a roof and slid down, panting, to land next to Veli.

“Vhere’s _Sorin_?” Veli snapped.

“Ordered me _avay_ to tell hyu—guns overheat—here hand out dese gloves hy’m goink _beck_ —“

“Hy iz faster,” Veli snarled, already sprinting past Premisl and over the roof, ripping the sleeve off his jacket and wrapping it around the butt of the gun as he went.

The gun started heating up two roofs later when he shot three climbing clanks in quick succession. He sped up.

* * *

The good news was that most of the roofs were close enough together that Sorin could travel over them at a run.

The bad news was that he was running because he was being chased by a clank that _should not be able to stand on the roof of a house_.

Premisl was going to say _I told you so_ for the next year, wow. Talk about faulty assumptions!

 _Ultra light metal, maybe?_ he thought, pausing to shoot over his shoulder—and miss again, _damn it_ —before sliding down to the roof below. He stumbled on landing, twisted his ankle—he’d live, keep going. _It’s not the roofing material—definitely wood shingles, ow. Maybe the insulation—_

He jumped, grabbed the edge of the next roof, hauled himself up as the clank swiped as his legs. Stop, reload. The gun hissed as he released the spring, smoke rising angrily from the inside. He grit his teeth, jammed another steel bar in, turned, fired as the clank hoisted itself onto the roof—

The gun flared _hot—_ so hot he could feel it through his gloves, and the chamber went white and then collapsed in on itself in a mess of molten steel. “Red _fire_ ,” Sorin shouted, and took off across the roof again.

No good, the clank was faster than him—had a longer stride, had a longer reach—he dashed across a small gap in the houses—could go left or straight, which way—dodged around a chimney—where was the next roof—

\--There, on the other side of the street. Sorin’s heart sunk. Should have gone left.

The clank was gaining, slowed only a little by the chimney. Sorin would have to jump. He shot forward, fast as he could, twisted and chucked the _useless_ chunk of metal at the clank’s feet as his own left the ground—not going to make it not going to make it oh god this is going to _hurt_ —

 _Bam_ , something impacted him—behind and to the left, from the other row of houses?—the world whirled, two arms wrapped around him—the ground rose up—Veli landed at a run, _bounced_ forward, shot them down the street as he juggled Sorin into a princess carry. “Ve haff got to schtop meetink like dis,” he said, voice breathless even as he laid the accent on thick. “Pipple vill talk!”

Sorin cracked up.

“Oh god, you have excellent timing,” he declared, feeling a little giddy. Adrenaline, probably. Adrenaline and Spark fugue. He couldn’t stop grinning.

“Vell, if hyu hadn’t sent Premisl off vithout hyu, it vouldn’t have mattered,” Veli said with a pointed look.

“Hey, I was doing _fine_ ,” Sorin started, before his brain caught up with his mouth and he remembered exactly how poorly he had actually been doing. “…or, well… Um—“

“Mmmmm,” Veli said, pursing his lips, “und also hy vas serious, please stop jumping off of things. Iz bad for mine poor heart.”

Oh, was he really annoyed? Sorin checked, suddenly concerned, but—no, he was grinning, his eyes dancing with amusement. Sorin grinned back.

“Naw, you’d get bored if I did,” he told him, and reached down to Veli’s belt, stole his gun. “I’m using this while your hands are full,” he declared, and reached around Veli’s neck with both arms, leaning over his shoulder and aiming at a clank that had caught sight of them, begun pursuit.

 _Bang_ , down. Veli laughed, whooped, right in Sorin’s ear. “Hokay, den!” he said, leapt back up to the roof of a house in one, two, three bounces, firmed his grip on Sorin. “Ve _hunt_!”

* * *

The alarm had been ringing non-stop for half an hour when it finally cut off, so suddenly the silence nearly hurt Veli’s ears. He paused in the middle of the street, head tilted, exchanged a look with Sorin.

“That’s weird,” Sorin said, and glared in the direction of the factory. “That’s weird, right? That’s not just me overthinking things?”

“No, iz veird,” Veli agreed. Was he surrendering—no, no way. Veli knew Blecher’s type, the man thought he was acting for the _greater good_ , he’d burn his damn town to the ground before he gave it up to an invader—had something happened to the factory? He jumped up onto an awning, used it to bounce onto the roof—

“Veli,” Sorin protested, clinging grimly, “a _little warning_ , please!” Oops.

“Sorry, kiddo,” Veli said. “Trying to see—“ Hmmmm… nothing at the factory, either. Five blocks ahead, Blazh climbed up onto a roof as well, looking around and frowning. He waved at Veli and Sorin when he spotted them, turned around to check the factory too.

“Why would he have shut down the alarm,” Sorin was muttering aloud, squinting off into the dark. “It’s not an all-clear, there are still clanks up. He’s going to give people the impression it’s safe, unless—that can’t be what it means, what does it—“

The alarm started off quiet, low like it needed warming up, and slowly rose in pitch until it was cycling across the houses again, echoing from rooftop to rooftop. _Gotterdammerung_ , Veli thought.

“And now he’s turned it back on again!” Sorin snapped, throwing his arms out in incredulity, still holding the gun in his right hand. “What in the world was _that_ about—“

“Iz a different alarm,” Veli interrupted.

Sorin paused. “What,” he said, voice flat.

“Iz a _different_ —“ The lab doors slammed open, revealing three identical lines of marching clanks. They hit the ground running, filtering out through the streets in a standard search pattern, feet echoing against the stones. _Clang, clang, clang, clang—_

“ _Are you kidding me_ ,” Sorin shouted, and his face was so _offended_ Veli nearly laughed. “How many clanks does he _have_ , sweet _lightning_.”

“Hy’d say… about a town’s population of children,” Veli pointed out, trying for levity. It didn’t really work.

“ _Argh_ ,” Sorin answered, succinctly.

“Look on de bright side,” Veli said, smiling cheerfully. “Dat means ve probably cleared de first vave pretty good!”

“I’m nearly out of ammo,” Sorin snapped, reaching up to tug at his hair in frustration.

“Hy have ammo,” Veli assured him.

“You don’t have a _gun_.”

“ _Hyu_ have a gun,” Veli pointed out. “Hy vasn’t going to vith _hold_ dem.”

“At this rate,” Sorin gritted out, “I don’t have a gun for _long_. This thing is already overheating—“

“Vell, it’s got to have cooled off a bit by _now_ —“

“It’s not _enough_! Even if we beat this wave, this isn’t all the children in the town! We’re going to run out—“

“Vell, den ve haff to start being more aggressive,” Veli said, perfectly reasonably.

“ _No_ ,” Sorin said, baring his teeth. “I’ll have to make more, is all. Maybe if you hold them off, I’ll have time—“

“To make vhat, vun? Two?” Veli shook his head, started running towards the first wave. “Ve don’t have time, kiddo. Dere is too many of dem.”

“So, what, that’s it?” Sorin snarled, hooking an arm around Veli’s neck again so he could aim at the first clank with the other one. He hit a hip joint, and it keeled right over into the one behind it. _Bang_ , _bang_. “We just keep doing this until they wear us down or we run out of—“

“Duck!” Veli grabbed Sorin’s head and pulled it down, pushing off the roof as he did. There was a deactivated lantern in the street—he caught the overhanging bar, swung on across to the next roof, skidded on landing. “In front!” he said, and Sorin looked up, aimed at the clank in front of them and fired without even pausing.

The clank’s footing was bad—this roof was clay, not wood—an old schoolhouse, Veli noted from the bell at the top and the sign hanging over the door, from the large field and play equipment behind--and that made it more slippery. It stumbled as Sorin’s shot hit its knee, pinwheeled its arms without finding purchase, and fell backwards, skidding—impaling itself on the sharp metal lattice it had been using to climb as it went. It spasmed, once, and then went limp. A few seconds later something started to leak out of the hole—blood, and machine oil. Veli winced, glanced at Sorin out of the corner of his eye.

Sorin had gone very still, arms tense around Veli’s neck, like he’d been suddenly encased in metal himself.

“…no,” he said, voice flat and level and practically _vibrating_ with rage. “That is not an acceptable outcome. Take me to Professor Blecher, Veli, we are going to end this _right now_.”

Veli had started moving off towards the laboratory before he even fully registered the order. “Hokay,” he said, perhaps a little belatedly considering his instant compliance, “but ve iz gonna suddenly be efferyvun’s target as soon as he figures out vhere ve iz going.”

“I _don’t care_.” Sorin was gripping the gun like he was strangling it. “That child is _dead_ because he is a short-sighted, deluded, _selfish_ , _cowardly_ —no, where are you going? Turn around, head for the castle.”

Veli paused halfway through bracing to leap back over the street, blinked down at Sorin, eyebrows raised. “…but hy thought hyu vanted to find de Professor?”

“The Professor is not _in_ the laboratory,” Sorin said, disgusted. “You heard his spiel, humans are too breakable to be _involved_ in things like battles. He’s nowhere near the action. I’d be surprised if he can even _see_ it. Head to the castle.”

…that was fair. Veli spun on his hoof, took off back over the clay roof again. “Hyu got it, boss,” he said, vaulting over a chimney and dashing over a flat expanse, cluttered with vegetable gardens and delicate latice work. “De castle it is.”

“Good,” Sorin said, grim and angry and laced with anticipation and Heterodyne harmonics. “I _can’t wait_.”

* * *

Veli hit the courtyard at a run.

Sorin had shifted in their dash to the castle, turned so they were chest to chest with his legs wrapped around Veli’s waist, so he could fire behind them and still leave Veli with an arm free to _actually get them to where they were going_. He was firing now—wide shots that fell short of their seven-clank entourage, just to keep them back far enough for Veli to maneuver. The gun had started to smell ominously burned, and they were down to their last three steel bars, but Veli hadn’t said anything—one way or another, this was about to be over, anyway.

“Brace,” he snapped, and turned, hitting the huge West Entrance door shoulder first and propelling them into the huge, dark corridor. He slammed it closed behind him, stepped back as Sorin fired at the hinges and lock mechanism, sealing them in place.

“That’s not going to hold for long,” Sorin observed, almost out of breath himself, which Veli thought was rather unfair as Veli had been the one hauling Sorin’s nicely shaped butt all around the town at speed for the past fourty-five minutes.

“Doesn’t need to,” he pointed out, taking off down the corridor as something heavy and metallic _clanged_ into the doors behind them. “Ve just need to be far enough ahead to find de Professor. Vhere is he?”

“How the hell should _I_ know?” Sorin snapped, clinging to Veli’s neck with both arms. “Did it look like I was spending much time in the past day and a half creating a _map_?”

“Hoy, dis vas _hyur_ idea, don’t shout at me,” Veli snapped back, wheeling through another door and choosing the right fork at random.

“You’re the one with experience storming castles, and—and setting up… patrol routes and things! He’ll be somewhere he’d consider _safe_ , where the hell would that be?”

“Ho, sorry hy didn’t spend dat much time having _deep, insightful conversations_ vith hour _host_ ,” Veli snarled, storming up some stairs. “Hy vas a little _busy_ \--“

“ _Look out_ ,” Sorin said, twisted to look behind him at where they were going, and Veli skidded, spun, snatched the minion who’d just appeared in their path out of the way and pinned him against the wall by the _throat_. Sorin slammed one hand against the wall by the man’s head to steady himself, pointed the gun directly between his wide, terrified eyes.

They all stared at each other silently for a few seconds, panting.

“… _Costache_ ,” Sorin said, and grinned, huge and mean and _mad_ , shining eyes narrowed at the minion like he was going to use them to burn him alive. “If you have a minute, it turns I _could_ use your assistance with something!”

Oh! The minion from the study! Veli grinned down at him too. The man whimpered, going limp in Veli’s grip like his knees had just given out.

“ _Where is your Master_ ,” Sorin snarled, leaning close to do it directly into the minion’s face.

“I… I can’t—“

“I’d think _very carefully_ about your answer, if I were you,” Sorin interrupted. “I’ve been playing some of the messages you gave Professor Blecher back in my head, and I’m getting the general impression you _knew what he was doing_. That’s kind of _appalling_ , Costache,” Sorin spat, “so I’m not really in the mood to go _easy_ on you right now. One more time, in case you didn’t hear me the first time: _where is your_ —“

“He would have used me _too_ ,” Costache moaned, and he actually looked like he was about to cry. “Please, _please_ , I had to—he would have ripped me open and installed me in one of those _things_ , there was nowhere out, I had _nowhere to go_ —“

Sorin stopped grinning, all at once, like a switch being flipped. “You’re older than _I_ am,” he objected. “He couldn’t have used you—“

“I was on the cusp when he picked me up,” Costache said miserably. “He’d started running out of children, and the next batch weren’t old enough yet—he was, was pushing the envelope—“

Sorin stared at him, eyes narrowed, jaw set as he worked that through. He was still pointing the gun between Costache’s eyes, arm solid as a rock.

Granted, Veli was also still holding him under the ass like he was about five, but it didn’t really look like either of the humans remembered that. Veli kept his face carefully neutral, opted not to point it out.

“…Okay,” Sorin said. “I accept that at the time there wasn’t much of a choice. But you have a choice now, don’t you? Two, even. You can _choose_ to sabotage us, send us off in the wrong direction and use the distraction to run to the Professor and tell him we’re here, or you can _choose_ to tell me where he is so I can _make him pay_.

“Because I am _going to, Costache, with or without your HELP. I AM GOING TO TEAR HIM OPEN AND SEE HOW HE ENJOYS IT. I AM GOING TO STRAP HIM DOWN AND REMOVE HIS LUNGS AND ENCASE HIM IN COLD, UNFEELING STEEL, AND I AM GOING TO LAUGH AS HE SCREAMS. I WILL DO IT WITH OR WITHOUT YOU, COSTACHE, SO NOW YOU DECIDE WHOSE SIDE YOU ARE ON! WHERE WILL YOU FALL, COSTACHE, HIS SIDE, OR THE SIDE OF ALL THE CHILDREN YOU **WATCHED DIE WITHOUT RAISING A FINGER TO HELP**_ —“

Costache started _sobbing_ , limp and broken, hanging by his neck in Veli’s grip. Sorin paused, eyes cold and sharp, jaw set.

“If you tell me where he is,” he said, voice level and calm, like the moment after an explosion, “you’ll be doing more for them than anyone else in this god-forsaken town _ever_ did. It’s not _enough_ to justify your part, but it would sure be a start. So. One more time, Costache. _Where is Professor Blecher_?”

“…in his study on the fourth floor,” Costache hiccoughed. “Take the stairs up at the end of this hall—take the right fork—third door on the right.”

Veli let out a breath he hadn’t even noticed he was holding, dropped the minion without ceremony, steadied Sorin with his free hand as he took off down the hall.

Behind him, there was a thunderous _crash_ , and the _clang, clang, clang_ of metal on stone filled the air.

* * *

Sorin’s gun started to collapse in on itself at the last door, when he melted he hinges enough for Veli to kick it in. Undaunted, Sorin twisted so he could glare into the room, pulling it up and pointing it directly at Blecher’s head. He bared his teeth. “Call them off,” he growled.

Behind his desk in the small, cluttered study, Blecher raised his hands, palms open. “Now, what makes you think I can do that from here?” he asked, voice mild.

“I’m not in the mood to play games with you,” Sorin returned, voice shaking with rage. “Call them off or I kill you right here and now. The current wave won’t stop, but there won’t be more after it, and I have ten jaegers out there cleaning up right now.”

“Well then,” Blecher said, putting his hands flat on the desk where Sorin could see them, careful not to make any movement that could be interpreted as hostile. “I guess you are just going to have to kill me.”

Sorin blinked. Inwardly, Veli groaned, bit down on an instinctive ‘sounds good to me’! Sorin wouldn’t see the difference if Veli killed Blecher instead of just letting Sorin do it. It needed to be _Sorin’s decision_.

 _Come on_ , Veli thought. _He thinks you won’t do it, and I can’t do it for you. You’re a Heterodyne! Don’t fold._

Sorin narrowed his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous! You don’t want to die here.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Blecher said, leaning back in his chair. “I have no interest in dying here today. I have far to much yet to do! But here’s the thing, my boy. _You don’t want to kill me_.” Sorin gritted his teeth, tight as a live wire and twice as angry. Blecher grinned.

“I know your type, Sorin Petrescu,” the Professor crooned, smiling like a shark. “You have the mind, and you have the means, but red _fire_ are you missing the _guts_. And that,” he said, “is why you will never be more than a middling level Spark at best. You can’t see beyond your own overly idealistic view of the value of human life to know when _sacrifices must be made_.”

For a moment, the room _vibrated_ with silence, with the vacuum left by Blecher’s declaration. Sorin stared the Professor down, eyes wide and furious, lips white. And then he lowered his gun.

Veli’s heart sank.

“You know, Professor,” Sorin said, voice—strange, what—“you are absolutely right. There _is_ a time when sacrifices must be made.”

And then he smiled, fey and dreamy and filled, _filled_ with madness. “Let’s start with you. Veli, desk.”

Veli didn’t even blink, just leapt forward and kicked the desk high over Blecher’s head. It shattered against the wall, papers and ink and wood raining down on Blecher, who shouted, eyes wide, covered his head.

Sorin lunged at the Professor, using Veli as a springboard, tackled the man into the wall behind him. Blecher’s head bounced off the wall with a meaty _thud_. His hands went up, reaching for his attacker instinctively, and Veli nearly reached out to shove them away, _snap_ the man’s wrists, but his Master slapped them away first, almost carelessly—he was strong, solid, compared to beating metal flat what was a human arm--pulled the arm holding the melting gun back—

 _Crack_! Blecher screamed, clutching his face, crumpled to the floor. Under his hands Veli could just make out the skin blistering—too fast a blow to leave more than that. Good hit, even if he did lose momentum flipping it over to strike hot side first.

“Ah, none of that,” Veli’s Heterodyne said, still light, dreamy. “You spend so _much_ of your time _encasing_ people in steel, Professor, and _not a one of them can scream_. _SHUT UP_.” Sorin hit him again, then pulled a dirty rag out of Blecher’s coat pocket, shoved it into this mouth. “Better,” he crooned, patting Blecher on the head. He stood, then, dropped the gun on the ground next to his captive.

“Now,” he said, madness in his stance and in his voice and in his eyes. “I believe you were saying something about _my type_.”

Veli stood behind Sorin, watching as Sorin systematically broke Blecher down—as he _played_ with him, as he forced him to _pay the price_ Sorin thought appropriate for Blecher’s crimes--Blecher reached for Sorin’s gun, subtly, and Sorin noticed and brought his heel down on the questing hand, “Oh now, Professor, that’s the type of thing humans shouldn’t be _involved_ in—oh, come on, it’s just your hand, none of your _clanks_ seem to have the flesh versions— _ooh_ , I wonder if I have enough training to do a bit of repair work _myself_ now. Yes, you do have two arms, after all, I can afford to make a _mistake…_ ”—

For a second there, Veli had thought… (“ _I don’t want—please don’t_ make me _—_ “)

He couldn’t decide now if he was _jubilant_ that Sorin had not, carried away by his Master’s madness and glee and fury, like he had for nearly two _centuries_ now, or worried about his— about what _Sorin_ would look like when he clawed his way back out of this, really took stock of what he’d done.

“This stops the moment you call off your clanks,” Sorin told Blecher quietly, staring the man in his huge, horrified eyes. Then he grinned down again, Master Saturnus in the cant of his shoulders, the tilt of his lips. “But that’s not about to happen, is it Professor? After all, you said it yourself, you’re prepared to _die first_. Veli, get me something sharp! I have an _experiment_ to conduct!”

Veli’s hands flew to the holster where he kept his knife, whipped it out, dropped it in Sorin’s questing hand handle first. “Thank you,” Sorin purred. “Now hold him down—ooh, this is going to make a mess of your carpet, Professor, I wonder if cauterizing the area will impact the installation of the arm—where is my gun—oh, don’t look so worried, Professor, molten metal is my specialty! I’m a blacksmith, you know—thank you, Veli,” Sorin said distractedly, as Veli put one hoof on Blecher’s shoulder and shoved him to the ground, applied pressure. “Now, Professor, tell me if I’m doing this right,” said Veli’s too nice, too soft townie boy, savage grin on his face, and he raised the knife to right above Blecher’s shoulder, began to bring the blade _down_ —

“ _MMMMMMMPH_!” Blecher pounded the ground with his other hand, eyes wide and tears falling down his face.

“Hm?” Sorin said distractedly. “Do you have something to say? Oh, I’m so sorry, the gag is in the way, isn’t it? Here, let me remove that for you—“ Sorin reached into Blecher’s mouth, dragged the cloth out.

“ _Front coat pocket_ ,” Blecher gasped. “ _Transmit frequency 531. Please—_ “

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Sorin said, pleasantly, and dropped the knife on the floor without ceremony, reached into Blecher’s coat pocket to pull out a box with a dial-thing. He turned the dial to 0531, flipped a switch on the side. The box whirred to life, a light in the top coming on and beginning to blink steadily. The alarm cut off less than a minute later. Sorin’s shoulders slumped. Veli stayed where he was, one hoof on the Professor’s shoulder, biting the inside of his lip. It was over.

It was not going to be pretty when Sorin came down. That needed to happen somewhere else.

“Ve should maybe relocate, sveethart,” Veli offered, hesitantly. “Ve head back to de rooms, und hyu can write de Baron—“

Something shifting in the open hallway had Veli jerking forward, nerves clanging. What _now_ —

“It’s just the clanks,” Sorin said, and strode past Veli to the door. “Our good Professor must have them programmed to not come in, they really should have arrived earlier. Pick him up for me, will you, I don’t want to leave him—“

Sorin stopped, going still in the doorway, shoulders stiffening back up. Then he whirled around and lunged at the Professor, ripped him out from under Veli’s hoof and lifting him by the throat so he could snarl into his face. “ _What did you do_.”

The Professor started to laugh. Never a good sign. Veli left him to Sorin, picking up the knife as he went, slipped around the pair of them to check outside—

At first, Veli didn’t see the problem. There were ten clanks in the hallways and they were all standing in a row against the walls, still as statues—no, actually, Veli was wrong, they were—swaying, dizzily, like they were drunk or—

The last one in the row looked newer—the lines were a bit sleaker, it was still pretty shiny. It was the only one moving.

It was clawing at its facemask.

“Did you think,” Blecher spat behind Velimir, “that I would ever let the Baron see my _research_? Don’t be naïve, boy—“

Veli turned just in time to watch him pull the man back and _slam_ his head against the wall. Blecher crumpled.

Sorin turned to lunge for the transmitter again, resting where he’d left it on the floor. “Change the frequency,” he muttered. “No, that won’t work, it’s not the frequency it’s the transmission and it’s set up to repeat—it’s hit the other radio towers by now. _Damn it_. Veli, find his notes, I need to know what this transmission actually _does_ —“

Sorin snatched up his gun, hit the trigger once, twice, three times. The gun glowed red hot. Sorin pulled out his tongs, dragged a metal desk leg closer— “Okay,” he said, and began to hum.

Veli jumped over to the remains of the desk, checking Blecher on the way—well and truly out, too bad, no reason to kill him. He grabbed a handful of the mess of papers, tugged them out from under the pile of rubble—they tore, oh well, still readable—okay, transmissions. Radio frequencies. No, no, no—what the hell was he even looking for, he had no idea what any of this meant. He threw that pile away, grabbed another handful. Behind him, Sorin cracked open the transmitter, looked around and dragged the lamp closer. Smashed it against the wall. Glass flew. Veli blinked, sighed, and went back to the papers, now in the dark. _Sparks_ …

Tax forms, experiment—different experiment, another experiment—okay! This was the former pile he needed. Veli hauled it over and started paging through. Transmission, transmission—

The gun flared hot again. Veli’s eyes snapped to Sorin despite himself, watched as Sorin field welded something into place, keeping up a steady heterodyne drone, eyes narrowed in concentration as the light danced over him in the darkness of the room—

Veli dragged his eyes away, teeth gritted as he thumbed through the notes. There were the clanks—protocols, good. Frequency lists—transmissions—

Veli found what he was looking for, crawled over to Sorin, shoved the paper into his face. Sorin stopped humming immediately, blinking. Then his eyes focused and he started to read.

“Oh, of _course_ they’re set to _blow up_ once the kids finally stop fighting _extermination_ ,” he snarled, and shoved Veli’s hand out of the way. “ _Naturally_. That makes _so much sense_ —Veli, I need more wire, check him.”

“Jah,” Veli said, and shoved his way over to the slumped figure of the Professor, quickly went through his pockets and dumped the contents in a pile at Sorin’s side. The Professor started to stir, groaning in pain. Veli knocked him out again.

“Perfect,” Sorin said, distractedly. “Okay, I’ve got to time this right—this is going to give the ones in the hall a double dose, but maybe--“ and he switched on one of his little machines, the one he’d first attached to the transmitter—the one with a metal cone like a deaf old man would use.

Nothing happened. What—one of the clanks in the hallway crashed to the floor. “Receiver working correctly,” Sorin declared, and started to hum again.

Veli shot over to the doors, peaked out. The clanks were swaying, still, the one closest to the door was the one that had fallen—it was clutching its chest, like human instincts had finally overridden installed protocols, like its heart had stopped—

Sorin’s steady bass drone echoed through the hall. It went still. Then, to Veli’s genuine surprise, it pushed itself up, looked around.

The heterodyning had canceled out the signal.

“Iz vorking,” Veli called into the room—oh, wait, Sorin wouldn’t hear him. He spun on his hooves, gave Sorin an a-okay sign. Sorin nodded, eyes far away, reached behind him for the second device and hummed into it for a second. Then he switched it off, went quiet.

“Well?” he asked, Spark in his eyes and his voice, shoulders tense. “What about now?”

Veli turned. The clanks were picking themselves up, looking around, as bewildered as clanks with blank facemasks could look. “Still vorking,” he declared.

“ _Ha_ ,” Sorin said, and jumped to his feet. “Excellent! The heterodyning _does_ disrupt radio signals in addition to sounds in the normal human range of hearing, and the audible transmitter is working correctly. That’ll go out to all the same radio towers and repeat well after the other transmission stops. The children will be fine!

“You hear that, you dull, crazy, short-sighted old man? I _beat_ you, and I used your _own damn radio signals to do it_! What do you think of _that_ , huh? Call me a middling Spark again—“

“…He can’t hear you, kiddo,” Veli said, somehow managing to keep the laugh out of his voice. “He’s still knocked out.”

“I don’t _care_ ,” Sorin said, spinning to look at Veli, grin wide and eyes dancing with triumph. “I _win_.” And he marched over to Veli, grabbed the lapels of his jacket, and pulled him down—Veli went, completely out of surprise—

Warm lips on his, pressure, the scent of molten metal and machine oil and _Sorin_ in the air, Sorin’s breath on his face, the heat of his skin and his hands on Veli’s chest and—Veli opened his lips, thoughtlessly, got just a taste—

\--Sorin pulled back, spun on his heel and snatched up his radio, turned and marched out of the room, past Veli. “I’m sending this to Herr Langer,” he declared. “Show him for not letting me touch his radios—oh, and the Baron, I have to contact him—maybe I can send out an order to get the others to bring the children back to the factory, too, and I wonder if there are any biology books in Blecher’s library—Pick him up and bring him, will you Veli? I don’t want him where he can do any more _damage_.“

Veli blinked, dazed, into the dark and completey destroyed office. What—he—oh. Oh, right. He shook his head, turned to look at Sorin, who had stopped in the hall, turned to look at him, confused; Veli could almost see realization sneaking in at the corners of that look—no.

He marched into the room, snatched Blecher up, and then marched back out to join Sorin. “Ve can tie him up in de rooms und let hyu leetle clank guard him,” Veli offered, grinning wide and casual, like nothing had happened. Sorin relaxed, grinned back.

“Oh, _yes_ , that’s a good idea! And I have a few other ideas—“

Veli followed Sorin up, listened to him chatter on, riding high on Spark fugue and triumph and adrenaline.

He hadn’t meant anything by the kiss, Veli knew. It was just—what it was, an act of celebration, an outpouring of victory in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, and Veli had just… been there. Yes. He _knew_ that—

He could still taste Sorin on his lips, could still feel where Sorin’s hands had rested on his chest.

 _Oh_ , he thought, letting Sorin’s voice wash over him, helplessly, following him into the rooms where Sorin dropped his radio on the couch and went to go hug his clank, which looked understandably rather startled at the sudden containment. _Oh, I am in so much trouble_.

“Veli?” Sorin called, glancing at him over his shoulder again from across the room.

“…Jah,” Veli said, and went to find restraints. They had work to do.

* * *

The thing was, jaegers weren’t _supposed_ to fall in love with their Heterodynes.

Veli had gone and done it anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the epilogue!


	5. Epilogue

Herr Baron Wulfenbach,

I have taken Blecherville. Bring your best doctors and specialists in human/clank interfaces. Also any medical books on same.

Sorin Petrescu

* * *

pleese advise can petrescu kill professer or can townspeople have him.

CPT Velimir Ardel

* * *

disregard previous messege is moot.

CPT Velimir Ardel

* * *

PLEASE EXPLAIN PREVIOUS TRANSMISSION.

WULFENBACH

* * *

petrescu decided no killing professer.

* * *

WILL ARRIVE IN EIGHT HOURS.

WULFENBACH

* * *

Klaus was not at all surprised when the small dirigible set to take him down to Blecherville was halted and a Jaegergeneral climbed aboard, despite the fact that Klaus had given explicit orders to not inform any jaegers of his departure or destination.

He was somewhat more surprised by _which_ General climbed aboard.

“General Khrizhan,” he greeted, as Khrizhan sat down in the chair one of the crew was hurriedly providing him. “Taking a trip down to solid ground, I gather?”

“Ho, yaz,” Khrizhan said jovially, leaning back into his chair and putting one enormous hand on the armrest. “Iz a goot opportunity to stretch mine legs, since hyu iz goink ennyvay. Hy haff not been on de ground for _yearz_ , hy iz curious to see iffen iz enny different now.”

“I must admit, I expected it to be Zog with a sudden desire to stretch his legs in the new Heterodyne’s first conquest,” Klaus said wryly, signaling to the pilot to continue with take-off as he did—no point in trying to kick Khrizhan off, it wouldn’t work and they’d end up even more behind schedule than they already were.

“Ho, Zog haz come down vit a bad case ov broken femur,” Khrizhan replied easily, grinning like a shark. “Dese tings happen. Old bones, hyu know.”

“I suspect the application of some force by a jaeger of similar age and strength did not help matters, either,” Klaus returned.

“Ha!” Khrizhan’s grin widened. “No, did not help at _all_! Fonny, dot.”

Klaus snorted and turned back to the reports he was reviewing. To be fair, it would probably be better to have Khrizhan walking into this mess than Zog. Zog, Klaus expected, would only encourage Sorin to keep the town.

Klaus had known that Blecherville was in need of intervention before he sent Petrescu there, although he had not quite known the extent of the damage. To be frank, he _still_ wasn’t sure what he was walking into. Petrescu’s telegraph had been less than specific.

Considering Klaus’s previous reports had been on the unsettlingly low number of children in the town, and Petrescu’s message that doctors and human/clank interface specialists would be needed, along with the fact that Blecher’s specialty was clank work…

Well, the fact that Petrescu asked for aid was promising.

“Herr Baron,” Boris called, walking into the cabin. “I’ve gathered the—oh, General Khrizhan.” Boris paused, look of instinctive distaste morphing into one of polite neutrality almost instantly. “I had no idea you’d made it on board.”

“Ho, yaz,” Khrizhan responded. “Hy iz goot at dot. Bot pliz, dun let mine presence schtop hyu from speaking vit de Baron about dis ting hyu iz gathering before ve enter Blecherville!”

“I believe,” Klaus interjected, “that Boris was about to mention he had gathered the _doctors_ Petrescu requested and given them a brief summary of what we know of the situation.”

“Ho, dot makes a lot vit de sense,” Khrizhan agreed, smiling toothily.

Klaus sighed, let himself up out of his chair. “Boris, I’d like a word with those doctors myself, if you’d show me where they’ve been seated.”

“Absolutely, Herr Baron,” Boris said promptly, stepping out of the door so Klaus could exit. “General,” he acknowledged with a polite nod, and then firmly shut the sliding door, cutting the sound from the cabin almost completely.

Klaus gestured down the hall, and only turned to Boris when he was certain they’d be out of the General’s considerable range of hearing. Khrizhan absolutely knew what was actually going on out here in the corridors, but there was no reason to make it _easier_ for him. To that end, he pulled out the pocket noise-cancelling cube he’d brought precisely for this reason and turned it on. A low, constant sound of static filled the hallway.

“What news from Blecherville,” he asked.

“Petrescu has been compiling a list of those things you will need to know upon retaking the town,” Boris said promptly, falling into step easily on Klaus’s right. “It appears, so far, to include the number of clanks, a rudimentary system for ordering them, and their current state of repair, a list of defenses that have been—deactivated,” here Boris made a face that Klaus had learned meant ‘the jaegermonsters threw the defenses at something hard and took bets on how many pieces would result’, “and the state of the coffers, which are surprisingly low considering Blecher’s most recent reports on the status of his town.”

“He does not expect to be keeping the town, then,” Klaus mused aloud, and relaxed.

“No,” Boris agreed, “but the townspeople might actually be something of an issue. They appear rather taken with Petrescu, and the jaegers—“ here Boris frowned. “Apparently, they have not done much to discourage the assumption that Petrescu will be _permanently_ holding the town.”

“Well, they wouldn’t,” Klaus said speculatively. “Never mind, we’ll go with the version we discussed—that Petrescu entered the town on my behalf and was holding it with my permission, and will not be acting as custodian any longer than is necessary for us to put a different governor in his place. What about Blecher?”

“That,” Boris said, sounding tired, “is harder to determine. It appears the Captain was correct in his assertion that Petrescu ordered him to remain alive, but other than that… well, apparently some medical aid was necessary.”

Klaus sighed. He still had very little idea what to do with the fact that Petrescu had apparently sought his opinion on what to do with Blecher, and then made the decision before Klaus could advise. Certainly, it did not speak of someone who considered himself a vassal, although what _that_ meant for Petrescu’s opinion of his situation Klaus could not be sure.

At least he had Petrescu’s parents and sister still on board. He was… beginning to believe having that particular card may not be quite as necessary, but…

“…There is one more thing,” Boris said, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant. “Petrescu appears to be compiling another list. From what we can tell, it is a list of serial numbers for the clanks, and the… corresponding human names.”

Klaus sighed, suddenly very, very tired. “That,” he said levelly, “ _will_ be useful upon our arrival. Now, I do actually want to talk to the doctors, Boris, if you would lead the way.”

“Absolutely, Herr Baron,” Boris said, dropping the issue immediately. That was one of the things Klaus liked about Boris. He always knew when it was best not to push. “We’ve placed them in the large sitting area on the lower—“

Klaus followed Boris down the hallways, switching off his noise-cancelling device as he went, and prepared to greet the doctors.

* * *

When Klaus and Khrizhan disembarked from the dirigible three hours later, they were greeted by neither Petrescu nor the Jaegercaptain who had been communicating with them, but with a jaeger wearing a uniform—which looked Austro-Hungarian, interestingly—that indicated his rank to be Private. He was slightly blue tinged, with red hair, relatively human features, and a hat with a brim that covered half his face, likely making it difficult to see where he was going. He snapped to attention the moment he spotted them.

“…at ease, Andrej,” Khrizhan said, sounding amused. “Vot’s dis, den?”

“Herr Baron und General Khrizhan,” the Private—Andrej?—began. “Velcome to Blecherville. Hy haz been ordered by de Captain to giff hyu de official report ov vot iz happening since ve arrive here, und den bring hyu to de kestle vhere refreshments vill be provided—or ve ken go to de kestle first und hyu ken haff refreshments vhile hy giff de report, iz op to hyu, but ennyvay—“

“Thank you, Private,” Klaus interrupted, and the jaeger stopped talking to look at him, questioningly. “But I was rather hoping to speak with Herr Petrescu before anything else happened.”

“…Oh,” the jaeger said, face going carefully neutral. “Hy iz sorry, Herr Baron, bot right dis minute Master Sorin iz verra buzy und cannot schpeak vit hyu about tings, bot iffen hyu ken come vit me now, hy vill let him—“

“I am sure,” Klaus interrupted, “that he will make time. Private.”

The jaeger stared at him for a moment more, and then looked at Khrizhan—oh, right, Klaus technically did not currently command the jaegers who had been detached to act as Petrescu’s honor guard. Klaus narrowed his eyes in annoyance, looked at Khrizhan, too. Khrizhan raised an eyebrow, but he nodded at Andrej.

Andrej sighed, reached up to adjust his hat. “Jah, Herr Baron, iffen hyu und the General ken chust follow me, hy tink Master Sorin iz near de lab chust now.”

The lab, it turned out, was more along the lines of a factory—at least three stories above ground, and unless Klaus missed his guess there would be more underneath. Petrescu was sitting out near a pair of huge double doors, surrounded by notes and what upon closer inspection were medical textbooks, humming to himself distractedly as he made his own notes in a half-filled notebook. Too pale, flush high on his cheeks, rings under his eyes, shoulders slumped--he looked exhausted. Klaus was no stranger to lack of sleep himself, of course, but he’d been trained and modified to make it less of an issue. Petrescu definitely had not. Klaus looked away and to the boy’s right where another jaeger stood, arms and goat legs crossed, idly reading over Petrescu’s shoulder—Captain Velimir, Klaus remembered. In front of _him_ was a very battered, apparently unconscious Professor Merten Blecher.

The Captain looked up as the approached, eyes narrowed, and he didn’t relax as he saw who was approaching, just straightened and fired off a quick salute to Khrizhan. “General,” he greeted, “Herr Baron, hy didn’t realize hyu vas coming right to de labs!” Andrej, Klaus noticed, grimaced a little and looked pointedly at Khrizhan. Veli sighed and reached over, tapped Sorin on the shoulder. “Hoy, kiddo,” he said, as Petrescu looked up. “Company.”

“Hm?” Petrescu asked, turning to look, and then his eyes widened and he jumped to his feet, dropping his notebook where it was. “Oh, Herr Baron,” he said, and he walked forward, offered a polite hand. Klaus took it.

“I see you’ve been busy,” he responded, raising an eyebrow and looking pointedly at the Professor. The boy looked behind him, and the look of polite interest immediately faded to one Klaus was very familiar with—a look of Sparky annoyance, a tinge of disgust around the edges.

“Oh, yes,” Petrescu said, voice still polite, even with the threads of the Spark throughout. “He’s been a bit of a _handful_. He kept trying to _countermand orders_ once he heard I’d called you here, and _then_ he started trying to build his way out of the situation somehow—“ Petrescu looked back at the Baron with black rimmed eyes, a little glazed and obviously much more angry than his voice was letting on. “I checked, though, and I am _pretty_ sure the breaks in his hands will heal relatively cleanly. His jaw might be a bit trickier, though. I was annoyed and only had a wrench on hand.”

Beside Klaus, Khrizhan cleared his throat, face carefully blank. “Completely understandable, Master,” he assured Sorin. “Vos verra rude ov him, really.”

“Yes,” Petrescu agreed, turning to give Blecher a look that would likely have had a conscious man bursting into flames. “I’d appreciate it if someone could get him _out of my sight_ before I bash his _horrible little head in_.” He turned back to Klaus, eyes wide and a little mad. “It’s been very hard not to,” he confided, blinking. Klaus nodded, carefully, as Petrescu swayed on his feet a little—the Captain took a step forward, obviously ready to catch him—but the boy righted himself, eyes suddenly shining with inspiration.

“Oh!” he said. “I’m sorry, I should have thought—I can make a cage for him. A walking cage—we have the copper, but it will take maybe fifteen minutes—I can electrify it! That way he can’t kick it in with his disgusting, manipulative, _obnoxious_ , _evil_ —“ Klaus never found out what body part Petrescu had been describing, because Captain Velimir interrupted, prodding Petrescu gently on the back of the head. Petrescu’s mouth snapped closed, eyes shooting to the jaeger like they’d been pulled on a string.

The Captain smiled at the boy, gentle. “Iz hokay, boss,” he said soothing. “Dey have a bed vit restraints and everything already, look.” Petrescu looked behind Klaus, likely spotting the hospital bed and restraints he’d ordered to follow him off the dirigible five minutes after he departed.

“…Oh,” Petrescu said, sounding a little put out. “I like my cage idea better.”

The Captain _grinned_ , eyes dancing, and exchanged an amused look with Khrizhan before poking Petrescu again. “Hyu can make it later,” he suggested, “vhen ve iz not pressed for time, jah? Den de Baron can use it for another prisoner.”

“…Okay,” Petrescu said, and turned back to the Baron. “He’s all yours, then.”

“…Thank you,” Klaus said, dryly, and gestured the orderlies and bed forward. Petrescu _definitely_ did not see himself as particularly subordinate in this situation, but a lot of that may be the Spark talking. This boy looked like he was riding the end a fugue that had gone on for _days_ , was probably near the point of collapse. What he said would have to be taken with a grain of salt.

Petrescu watched carefully as the orderlies loaded Blecher onto the bed, strapped him down. He looked a little glazed again, was tapping a wrench against his leg rhythmically. He turned back to Klaus as soon as Blecher was out of sight, shoulders stiff and eyes serious. “Alright,” he said, as though they’d been having a conversation. “And now, you need to tell me about how there was _no possible way_ you couldn’t have known that children were disappearing at unbelievable rates from this town before you sent me here.”

 _Ah_ , Klaus said, looking back steadily. _So that’s the issue, then_. “Yes, I knew,” he said, voice level as he could make it.

Predicably, Petrescu exploded. “ _This was a TEST_?” he shouted, eyes alight and furious. “ _DO YOU KNOW— **CHILDREN** —HE WAS **RIPPING THEM APART AND USING THEM FOR CLANK PARTS**_ —“

“Do you know how many children the average Heterodyne kills or mutilates in his lifetime?” Klaus interrupted, stopping Petrescu cold, leaving him stuck mid word, mouth partway open. Good. “I have the statistics going back to the Het’rok’din, I can get you the numbers. I was coming in here regardless in seven days, with three batallions and all the doctors I brought with me today. The children would not have been any better or worse for one more week in their current condition, and Blecher, with a pupil I sent him and the many distractions he had in ruling a town and maintaining the many clanks he had created, would not have seen me coming. The only unaccounted for factor in this mess, Petrescu, was _you_.”

“You were using me as a distraction?” Petrescu asked, looking sick and exhausted and a little hurt.

“…Yes, to some extent,” Klaus agreed. “And I wanted—needed to know, for the good of the _Empire_ , what the new Heterodyne would do when confronted with this sort of situation.” He frowned, considering the boy’s hurt expression again, before adding “I had planned for seven days because that is how long I expected you to need, at your current level of training and what I knew of your personality, to uncover what Blecher was doing and come to a decision about it. You’ve surprised me—favorably, in this case.”

Petrescu stared at him for another minute, and then looked away. The jaegers, all three of them, were silent. “It was obvious the first day,” he said, roughly. “How would someone _not notice_ that a town had no children?”

“You would be surprised,” Klaus answered, suddenly tired.

“Mm,” Petrescu said, and then looked back at him, determined. “Alright,” he said slowly. “I… I get that this time, you had to do it this way. To find out what you _wanted_ from me.” He stopped, took a deep breath, let it out slowly before continuing. “But… but now you _know what I will do_ , so you _never have to do it again_. I… I don’t mind,” he said, voice dropping the harmonics of the madness place and taking on an almost pleading tone. “I’ll do this, I’ll go into a town and I’ll _take the Sparks apart_ when they’re doing things like this, I _will_ , but you—“ He stopped, firmed his jaw. “Next time, you tell me. You _ask me_.”

Klaus stared back levelly, inwardly rolled his eyes. If he _asked_ every Spark in the Empire to do something for him every time he needed something done, he would still be very politely knocking on the first Spark’s front gate.

Still, it did look like Petrescu would be willing, in this type of situation, and the boy… seemed to respect him enough to want respect in return, to perhaps look up to him as a type of teacher of a different sort. It would be useful, to keep the trust of the Heterodyne, not the least of which because… well, the boy had noticed there was something wrong in this town the first day, and had handily removed the Spark from power by the end of the second.

Besides, it was refreshing to deal with a Spark who genuinely had good intentions. It happened rarely enough to be noteworthy, and in this case the naiveté that fueled it would be gone all too soon, lost to the reality of human nature. He missed Bill and Barry, and their tenacious grip on the belief in the goodness of humanity in _spite_ of spending half their lives with the worst of it, with a suddenness that surprised him. He nodded. “That’s fair,” he told Petrescu, levelly. “I apologize for the form this… particular test had to take.”

“Alright,” Petrescu said again, and the tension went out of his shoulders. All around Klaus, the jaegers relaxed, too. Khrizhan looked rather pleased, even, although Petrescu’s two were eyeing their Master like they expected him to keel over any minute. “I’ll take you in to see the clanks if you want, or I think there’s food at the castle…”

“Yes, we were told about the refreshments,” Klaus said wryly. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look at the factory first, and perhaps have an update on your progress putting things back in order.” He hesitated again, and then mentally sighed at himself. Perhaps this was just the part of Klaus that was a _parent_ talking, but the fact was that he’d gotten exactly what he wanted from this boy, so there was no real reason to keep him off balance, and to be frank, he was going to _collapse_ if he did not come down from this fugue soon and get some sleep. “From there,” he said carefully, “I believe my people will be fine to continue while you take a rest.”

“Oh,” Petrescu said, looking startled. “No, that’s alright, I’m fine, I’m not tired. Besides, I want to help—“

The Jaegercaptain _actually_ put his head in his hands, quietly, behind Petrescu’s back where he couldn’t see. Ah, apparently this was an argument that had been ongoing for some time. He pinched his lips together, exchanged a look with Khrizhan, who looked torn between amusement and genuine concern. “Vell,” said the General, “ve at least look at de clenks first, jah? Den ve ken reassess vot help iz needed vhere!”

“That sounds acceptable,” Klaus agreed, before Petrescu could say anything. “After you, Herr Petrescu.”

Petrescu frowned at them, not so far into the madness place or in the grips of exhaustion to miss that they were luring him into a trap, but he shrugged, finally, turned towards the door. The first jaeger, Andrej, fell in at his side, subtly positioned to catch him if he fell. “Right,” Petrescu said, shoving the doors wide open. “Through here, are the docks for the first wave—they’re all immobilized, so we laid them out to make everyone a bit more comfortable—watch out for the parents, they’re a bit distracted—“

Klaus watched as the Captain fell back with Khrizhan as they all followed Petrescu in and began a tense, whispered conversation. Hm, well, _that_ Klaus would try to stay out of, at least for now.

After all, it seemed there would be plenty of time to learn all there was to know about Herr Petrescu in the coming years.

* * *

Captain Velimir _did_ manage to lure Petrescu off to sleep eventually, which was good, as over the course of the next few hours Klaus became rather intimately aware of how much Petrescu had accomplished in what amounted to about two days from taking the town, and how little sleep he must have had to accomplish it.

The Jaegercaptain returned about two hours later, marched right into Klaus’s office on the dirigible, trailing distraught guards in his wake as he went. Khrizhan stood as the Captain passed, surprised.

 _Klaus_ was surprised. It wasn’t often a jaeger was quite so… insistent, even with their general disdain for formality. Not to the point where they would walk past a General without a word. “Is there something I can help you with, Captain,” he said levelly, standing as the jaeger approached.

“Jah,” Captain Velimir started, voice deadly serious, as he came to a halt in front of Klaus’s desk, crossed his arms and glared, disapprovingly, “Hyu can say hyu iz not going to do dis to him on a regular basis, Herr Baron. Hy don’t care _vat_ he tells hyu, he vill go into effery vun ov dose towns, und he vill _kill himself trying to fix dem_. No.”

“I believe that is _his_ decision, Captain,” Klaus said levelly, shooting a look at Khrizhan as he talked. Khrizhan’s mouth was set, eyes narrowed, but he appeared to be letting the Captain say his piece. Very well then. “Not yours.”

Captain Velimir could not have looked more unimpressed. “ _Dat_ iz vhere hyu iz wrong, Herr Baron,” he informed Klaus, voice steely. “Hy iz de Captain ov Master Sorin’s guard. Mine _only mission_ iz to keep him alive und as healthy as possible. Hy am telling hyu, if hyu send him after all hyu towns vit crazy Professor Blechers, hyu vill use him up. He will _break_ himself on dem for hyu, and dere vill be _nothing left_. Hy vill not let that happen.”

“I’m not going to _kill him_ ,” Klaus said, raising an eyebrow in surprise. “I have no reason to do that!”

“Hyu have no reason to care vun vay or de other,” Velimir informed him, setting his jaw. “Hy iz giving hyu vun.”

“Velimir,” Khrizhan said, growled like a warning.

Velimir paused, looking a bit unsure, and then firmed his stance again, shook his head. “Hy iz sorry, General, but hy told hyu, dis vas _too much_. He—“ he stopped, like he was looking for words. “He iz like Master Villiam in dis. He vill vork und fight himself into de ground, und in de end dere vill be nothing left ov him for Mechanicsburg. Hy _know_.”

Klaus went very still.

“He is not related to Bill directly,” he said, quietly.

The Captain turned back to him. “No,” he admitted, “but Master Villiam vas not created in a vacuum, Herr Baron, und he vas as much a Heterodyne as any ov his ancestors before him. Master Sorin iz—“ He stopped, sighed, shook his head.

Klaus understood.

“I will keep that in mind, Captain,” he said levelly. Made it a promise.

“Hyu had _better_ ,” the Jaegercaptain growled, and turned away from the table. “Because Master Sorin von’t notice vhen hyu manipulate him into another trap, but _hy vill_.”

He nodded to the General as he passed, and walked out the door as suddenly as he’d come.

He closed it behind him.

Klaus stood for a moment longer, and then slowly lowered himself back into his chair, turned to look at Khrizhan. Khrizhan looked back, levelly.

“…How accurate,” Klaus asked finally, “would you say that representation of Sorin Petrescu’s character is?”

Khrizhan sighed, lowered himself down as well. “Hy ken’t say,” he admitted. “Hy do not _know_ de young Master like Velimir does, und hy iz not going to. Dot iz vhy ve assign de honor guard, jah? So dere iz jaegers who ken guard our Masters, und also jaegers who vill _know_ dem a vay de rest of de army ken’t. Bot…” he frowned, thoughtful. “Hy ken see vot he means.”

Klaus nodded, carefully. “He’s not the Spark Bill was,” he pointed out.

“Vell, no,” Khrizhan said, shrugging. “Bot verra few Sparks _iz_ dot, jah? Iz more… temperament.”

“Hm,” Klaus said, and sat back in his chair. He had started out thinking that Petrescu would be—well, he hesitated to agree with the jaegers on this particular turn of phrase, since they had first used it to describe Bill and Barry, but Sorin Petrescu had always struck Klaus as rather _boring_.

Klaus may have been mistaken. It was possible, not likely, but at least _possible_ that Sorin, Lord Heterodyne would be more interesting than he’d thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading!


End file.
